Employers worry as Nigerian degrees face quality test

Certificates issued by Nigerian tertiary institutions have continued to face quality distrust due to the myriad  problems facing the entire educational sector in the country, and the poor performance of local graduates in the marketplace.
Also, employers of labour are agreed across the board, that in many cases, Nigerian graduates can hardly justify their certificates when employed.

In today’s ever competitive labour market,employers want their recruits to be competent technically, in their chosen fields. They also want them to come well equipped with complementary skills such as reflective and critical thinking, interpersonal and team skills, as well as effective communication and organisational skills.

With  growing unemployment in the country and employment companies finding it difficult to get the right candidates, as a result of poor quality of graduates from our tertiary institutions, education experts and stakeholders have been wondering about the worth of Nigeria degrees today, and what those saddled with the responsibility of managing the educational system are doing to address the problem.

Employers of labour often complain about the poor skills set displayed by so-called graduates from the country’s institutions of higher learning, while institutions running post graduate programmes have introduced internal examinations to test the graduates before admission. This, experts  say, points to the doubt which exists about the quality of the degree certificates obtained from tertiary institutions here.

Human resource managers, parents, educationists and policy makers are unanimous in their verdict that the Nigerian degree has lost it spark, and say that the sooner government and stakeholders address the problem, the better for the country’s labour force, for employers, and for the reputation of the educational system.

Experts believe that the way out is for tertiary institutions to work more closely with developmental organisations, to clean up the rot in the system. The debate follows recent empirical evidences indicating that many Nigerian graduates are not empowered with the requisite skills needed to perform effectively on the job.

Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC)  commenting on the issue, observed  that the worth of a university degree is the depth of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values associated with that degree, which the graduate bears as a consequence of his/her training.

Okebukola added that any degree earned through sloppy training cannot endow the holder with respectable knowledge and skills for the world of work, or for postgraduate studies. 
He said: “The absorptive capacity of the labour market in Nigeria has shrunk significantly in the last ten years, making it increasingly difficult for graduates to secure public and private sector employment”. This, he said, has translated into about 30 percent of graduates of Nigerian universities being unemployed or under-employed.

Sofiri Peterside, a lecturer in the Political Science Department, University of Port Harcourt, who is also a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Social Sciences (CASS) told BusinessDay that the quality of education in the country started to decline during the military era, and has continued till date.

He listed the problems of the sector as including poor funding, brain drain due to poor welfare for lecturers, poor students/lecturers ratio, with institutions admitting more than their carrying capacities, as well as corruption which bedevils the entire society. 
“If you want to pursue a graduate course abroad after your first degree here, they make you go through an internal examination which kind of creates doubt on the quality of the certificate you have come with. Of course the Nigerian university system has begun to copy that, even when students are coming for graduate programmes, they send them through an aptitude test which is an indication of doubt about the quality of the certificate that people are carrying,” Peterside noted.

He said that government had taken a positive first step to address the problem, by granting autonomy to universities.He further pointed out that the country was not yet complying with international standard, in terms of funding for education. 
Tayo Rotimi, a human resources expert, observed that human capital development in Nigeria has been bedevilled by the neglect of past and present governments concerning their promises to the citizens in the area of investment in education, which has remained largely undelivered on account of primitive expressions of greed by the political elite.

Rotimi advised that the universities should work more closely with the industries, so as  to understand their needs, have  fora where there could be  exchange of ideas, as to the challenges the industries are facing, and how they can develop  proper curricular to address these challenges.

Apparently disenchanted with the poor quality of university graduates, Rotimi informed BusinessDay that a country like the USA has strategically provided for the needs that would become very predominant in the next 50 years for professionals and has made strategic moves to fill the gaps, wondering why Nigeria should not follow suit.

Joseph Mba, a professor of Strategic Management, who is also chairman of the Academic Board at the Strategic Business School (SBS), Lagos, stressed that the Nigerian degree is not worthless in terms of academics, but is worth very little in practice. 
Mba, whose institution is involved in filling the skills gap in Nigerian graduates to position them  better for the actual work environment,is worried that the academic contents in the country’s institutions often do not address the real needs of the society.

“Academically, the Nigerian degree is not worthless because it is the basis of determination of students’ ability to think, it is also relevant for admission into institutions of higher learning abroad, but in practical relevance, it is worth little. Often, academic contents are not relevant to the needs of the society, especially to the employers. Graduates from these institutions are usually theoretically baked but half-baked for the business/practical world,” the professor stated.

He lamented that these graduates were not groomed for successful living because they passed through a system that encouraged dishonesty, corruption, mediocrity and other vices, while calling on other stakeholders, especially the policy drivers, to address the problem.