The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has reiterated that the country’s major challenge today is not unemployment but more of unemployable young graduates.
Pantami who stated there are many job opportunities in engineering, ICT, oil and gas but most youths with certificates cannot do the job which they were employed for, made the remark while speaking on the occasion of the prize presentation ceremony for the Katsina National Talent Hunt Challenge which took place in Katsina on Tuesday.
He decried the trend among Nigeria graduates chasing government employment rather than venturing into entrepreneurship which gives them the impetus to employ others, thereby bridging the unemployment gap in the country.
According to Pantami, “we cannot be able to be proud of our education and our system until we are able to produce students and graduates that could do what ever we wanted for our country.”
“As the situation is today, most of our young people after graduating from school are not in anyway thinking of entrepreneurship, they are only interested in looking for government employment.
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“There are many job opportunities in engineering, ICT, oil and gas but most of our youths with certificate if you employ them, you will discover that they will not be able to do the work you have employed them to do. So on daily basis foreigners are coming to Nigeria to come and do the job for us. Most of our technical people are engaged in administrative work, why we rely on other people to come and do the technical job.
“So, the Main challenge is not unemployment, I am not discarding unemployment but the major challenge is unemployability – A situation where I cannot be able to do the technical work that my certificate has stored that I have studied. So it is because of this, that I am very proud of what His Excellency (Governor Masari) {is doing.} has initiated here and I think it is good for other governor’s in the north to immediately copy from him.”
Using the prize winners of the Katsina National Talent Hunt Challenge as a case in point, Pantami said, “these people we are here to celebrate today, by implication are potential job providers. But if we are only here to celebrate people like my humble self, with plenty degrees, we will be celebrating potential job seekers where there are no opportunities.”
Consequently, Pantami emphasised that “the only way to improve the Nigeria economy is “to address the issue of unemployment and unemployability by giving more priority and preference to youths that have brilliant ideas and are willing to be self-reliant so that they will be able to employ others in return.”
Pantami therefore urged government at all levels and well meaning individuals on “the need to focus more on identifying our brilliant variants, the young people, by giving them all the necessary support they need in order to bring a paradigm shift with which we would be producing potential job providers instead of potential job seekers.”
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