TETFund and IFC Partner to Support Nigerian Tertiary Institutions to Strengthen Graduate Employability
TETFund and IFC Partner to Support Nigerian Tertiary Institutions to Strengthen Gtaduate Employability
The Tertiary Trust Fund (TETFund) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have partnered to support beneficiary Institutions in Employability Benchmarking Programme, aimed at enhancing graduate employability and initiative will directly benefit 99 beneficiary institutions across Nigeria.
The program’s rollout commenced with an implementation support workshop for 250 educational leaders from the academia, private sector, and government regulatory bodies in Abuja on October 4 and 5.
During the workshop, participants received frameworks and strategies strong connections with industries, which can ultimately improve job prospects for young graduates and their readiness for employment.
IFC experts facilitated the workshop, focusing on process and operations enhancement of tertiary-level education institutions to improve graduate employability in Nigeria.
Arc. Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary, TETFund speaking at the program, said, ” This program highlights the significant of, not only acquiring formal education, but also the importance of gaining employable skills necessary for today’s evolving job market, thereby, fostering an entrepreneurship culture and addressing unemployment.
”As an intervention agency for tertiary education in Nigeria,TETFund is deliberately refocusing its intervention activities to support learning outcomes and employability of Nigerian tertiary education graduates”
” I am pleased to report that the Strategic and Operational Plan for refocusing TETFund entrepreneurship intervention for employability and innovation was approved by the Federal Ministry of Education in March 2023.
“Consequently, the requirements and guidelines for accessing entrepreneurship development intervention of the Fund were revised in line with the approved Plan.
He further said, ” These will be achieved through the establishment of entrepreneurship hubs and innovation hubs in TETFund beneficiary Institutions to link students with industry with a view to enhance entreprenuership development, innovation and employability in line with contemporary global best practices.”
” The partnership with IFC will therefore boost employment opportunities, enhance job performance, and expand career options for yound graduates.”
Dina Nicholas speaking at the program said, ” Jobs play a pivotal role in economic development, fostering diversification, enhancing productivity, and a skilled and productive workforce,”
” IFC’s collaboration with TETFund on the National Employability Programme offers pathway to financial stability, benefiting individuals and communities, and contributing significantly to ecinomic growth and overall prosperity.”
”IFC utilized its Vitae employability tool to conduct a comprehensive nationwide benchmarking exercise for public and private Nigerian Universities, diagnose the implementation of employability best practice within tertiary institutions, and offer insights at both system and institutional levels for intervention areas to enhance the employability ecosystem and improve graduate employability outcomes.
The cooperation between TETFund and IFC was facilitated by the Cognity Advisory, an African development focused firm.
The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono, has further pledged support for measures that will improve employment of graduates in the county.
Echono made the pledge at the Implementation Support Workshop for National Employability Benchmarking Programme in Nigerian universities in Abuja on Wednesday.
He stressed the importance of implementing the recommendations contained in a report submitted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to ultimately reduce the high rate of unemployment in the country.
“The report indicates that the aggregate average score of Nigerian benchmark institutions across the five dimensions of employability is 2.3 out of 4.0 which is just above the average of all institutions benchmarked globally (2.2).
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“The report which also covers the assessment of the institutions’ Digital Learning Strategy shows that surveyed universities lagged behind global best practices in application of digital learning strategies, access to large multidisciplinary databases and digital course-reserves as well as the level of faculty digital skills.
“This obviously require deliberate action on the part of all stakeholders to address our peculiar challenges,” he added.
Echono said that Nigeria being a developing economy is faced with the challenges of high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment which is at an all-time high in the country.
He added that an increasing number of young Nigerian graduates from tertiary education institutions are being released into the labour market with a continuously shrinking absorptive capacity.
“The structure of the economy which is largely import dependent has further limited the ability of the country to generate commensurable jobs due to low level of industrialisation, thereby aggravating the unemployment situation in Nigeria.
“Thus, aligning our intervention activities to meet our changing needs, and strengthening our education delivery towards fostering an entrepreneurship culture are some of the best ways for unleashing the enormous youth potential,” he said.
He added that the fund is also working to address unemployment as well as other societal problems, thereby growing the economy.
He said that strengthening entrepreneurship education and training are crucial to achieving this.
“In addition, the Fund is in the process of establishing entrepreneurship and innovation hubs in our beneficiary institutions across the six geo-political zones of the country, to link them with industry.
“This is with a view to enhance entrepreneurship development, innovation and employability in line with contemporary global best practices,” he said.
He, therefore, said that the interventions would help promote the transformation of beneficiary institutions into catalysts for knowledge creation and organising the translation of knowledge into usable products and services for addressing societal problems.
The National Employability Benchmarking Programme, coordinated in collaboration with TETFund, the Federal Ministry of Education, and the National Universities Commission (NUC), is designed to develop an enabling system for young graduates to be part of the active labour market soon after graduation.
