A lecturer of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, Prof. Emmanuel Raymond has advocated for the development of skills to replace certificates.

Raymond said Nigeria’s unemployment problem could end when universities graduate students with workable skills.

He maintained that universities across the country must focus on producing only graduates who are skilled in vocation that will enable them make a living and even create jobs.

Thus, he urged Nigerian graduates to embrace Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a pathway to self-reliance and a practical solution to the country’s rising unemployment crisis.

Arewa PUNCH reports that Prof Raymond made this call during the 131 Inaugural Lecture of the FUT Minna on the topic: “The Marriage Between TVET and Job Creation: Let No Man Put Asunder,” wherein he stressed that TVET equips individuals with the practical knowledge and technical skills required for gainful employment and sustainable livelihoods.

According to him, “job creation efforts will achieve little without a skilled workforce capable of sustaining them,” noting further that, “skills development must be aligned with industry needs to ensure graduates are employable and able to contribute meaningfully to economic growth.”

The don warned that neglecting technical and vocational education would continue to produce graduates that are ill-prepared for the labour market, thereby undermining national job creation initiatives.

Using the marriage analogy, he described TVET as the “bride” that provides skills and competence, while job creation is the “groom” that offers economic opportunities

The professor who spoke with newsmen noted, “This topic is spectacular. It is hypothetical in the sense that it is a marriage that has been consummated long ago. The Marriage is as old as the history of mankind. The history of work is the history of man because you must work so that you can provide for your living.

“Therefore, we must do what we have to do to ensure that we empower our youths with the necessary skills for them to enter into employment.

“Everywhere in this country, we know the problem; there’s no job anywhere and this cuts across every family but the shocking news is that, it’s not that there are no jobs. We have the blue collar jobs and the blue collar jobs are already saturated and even no longer there, but people are interested in going to sit down in the office and use pen to work but we are saying that we should embrace TVET because we want you instead of using pen, you use tools and machines to work,” he said.

The Vice Chancellor of FUT Minna, Prof. Adamu Kuta also spoke after the Inaugural Lecture, saying the lecture touched on the country’s problem of unemployment, stressing that unemployment is at the root of insecurity and other social vices.

“Today’s lecture is  very important. One, it’s a lecture I consider as actually touching the challenge of the moment, especially as regards  the advancement of this country. You know, it’s a lecture that actually try to address the primary challenges that we have as far as this country is concern. You know job creation is our major issue and it has actually been responsible for a lot of issues, insecurity, social vices and so on.

 “You can see that today’s lecture attempted to look at those issues from the grassroots so that at the end we will try appropriate solutions that will make our country better for it.

“The lecturer was trying to address some of these problems so that at the end, we will find appropriate solutions. I want to be very specific that today’s lecture is one out of many that actually inspired many people. I’m sure many of you were at the hall when the students were shouting and calling for more.

“We will want to have lectures like this so that the youth that happen to be the major population of this country will have reasons to change their orientations so that people can no longer be job seekers, especially our graduates that we are churning out from the various universities on yearly basis, then we will now have job creators and not job seekers,” Kuta said.