Chima Azubuike, Gombe
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami has explained why Nigerian youth must focus on skills and de-emphasize paper qualification.
According to him, Nigeria focuses more on paper qualification than skills, adding that there are many job opportunities all over the country but with inadequate skills to fill the gaps.
“Sometimes when you go to commission projects, any person you visit, you will find him with many Curriculum Vitae waiting for you to arrive.
“When I travel to a state, I come back with over 200 CV’s, this is just an example we need to think outside the box. This is what many developed nations do, it is because of this their citizens are not interested in working under government, except under sacrifice.
“If you have got skills, and the enabling environment which has been provided for you, you will do better outside than within and at our own level we are doing the best we can to promote innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said.
Pantami revealed these on Friday, at the commissioning of ICT Incubation park at the Gombe state university, built by National Information Technology Development Agency.
The minister explained that, “By focusing more on class degree, most of our youth try to cabbage in, cabbage out just to cram what has been given to them and pass.
“In developed countries less preference is given to paper qualification, more of the skill. Paper qualification is supposed to be a validation of the skills acquired. It is the skill that does the work not not the paper.
“In Nigeria, it is an area we are battling with, I have been engaging my colleagues in the federal executive council so that we can join our hands together to ensure that outside the Academia, we should give less preference to paper qualification and focus more on skills.
“by producing graduates with Skills by implications, you are producing potential employers because graduates with skills focus more on entrepreneurship, while graduates without skills but with paper qualification and theory focus on government employment. They don’t have skills to be entrepreneurs, self reliant. The only option they have is to get employment with government but if you present those with skills their perception is becoming entrepreneurs.”
