The Minister of State for Education, Suwaiba Ahmad, says Nigeria is facing a skills gap, especially among youths, citing instances where foreigners are the ones doing jobs such as tiling in the country.

Ahmad said this on Friday while featuring on Channels Television’s Youth Forum, which focused on skills and knowledge gaps.

“As I mentioned earlier, we did a skill gap analysis, and we realised that there are a lot of skills that we don’t have experienced hands in. I can give you a lot of examples,” the minister, who spoke from Channels Television’s Kano Studio, said.

“Skills that generate a lot of money, for instance, this issue of solar light. There are a lot of openings and opportunities for youths there, but then we don’t have experienced hands there. We have tiling. For simple tiling, we employ people from outside the country, our neighbouring African countries, to come and tile our houses, but we have our youths running around with no money.

“These kinds of jobs, you discover that at the end of the month they make a lot of money, much more than a graduate.”

According to her, the Federal Government is working to bridge that gap with several programmes, including the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

“So we have about 25 skill areas identified. We have a training for them. We have the 6-month training; we have the 1-year training. In the first cohort, we have more than 100,000 students that have already started this,” Ahmad said.

“In fact, some of the students, the youth that have started, have even graduated, and we are giving them a starter pack at the end of it. They learn for a period of six months, and then we have another one for a period of 1 year. This is available nationwide.”

Certificates Not Enough

Her comments reechoed the sentiments of the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, who was also a guest at the event.

Olawande stressed the need for skill acquisition among Nigerian youths, saying that academic certificates alone are no longer sufficient in the present economy.

“One of the things I have always emphasised is skill development. Certificates alone may not be what is needed,” he said.

“You would discover that a lot of people going to school today are just going to school to become graduates. The skill gap should be addressed at the root of the matter.” (Channels TV)

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