President Muhammadu Buhari has berated the description of Nigerians as unemployable, asking Nigerian universities to focus attention on turning around the narrative.
He made the call while speaking at the 31st convocation of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo state, on Saturday.
Buhari was represented by Suleiman Yusuf, the deputy executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
Buhari said the description of Nigerian graduates as unemployable by employers of labour is worrisome to his administration.
He said universities should live up to their mandate and ensure that their graduates are employable.
“In today’s globalised knowledge economy in which the wealth, strategic importance and ranking of any country in the comity of nations is determined largely by its knowledge economy index, my expectation is that our universities will use the instrumentality of their tripartite mandates of teaching, research and community engagement to launch Nigeria into an enviable position among nations of the world,” he said.
“In this regard, government expects Nigerian universities to produce graduates imbued with the requisite knowledge, competencies, attitudes, and skills to be active role players in our quest for socio-economic and technological development.
“I expect universities to pay serious attention to the less than complimentary assessment of the graduates of our universities by employers of labour. Definitely, we cannot be comfortable when products of our citadels of learning are being described as ‘unemployable’, exhibiting lack of job-readiness and so on.”
Buhari asked universities to teach and train students on the requisite knowledge, competencies, attitudes, and skills needed to promote economic development in the country.
In his speech, the vice-chancellor, Prof Joseph Fuwape urged the graduating students to remain focused and determined as the open another chapter in their lives.
