A new report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has indicated that Nigerian universities are lagging behind in 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.
The report, which centred on the National Employ ability Benchmarking Exercise, also showed that the aggregate average score of Nigerian benchmarked institutions across the five dimensions of employability is 2.3 out of 4.0, which IFC said was just above the average of all institutions benchmarked globally (2.2).
Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund, Sonny Echono, speaking in Abuja at the workshop organised to discuss the implementation of the recommendations the report submitted by the International Finance Corporation, said there was the need to strengthen entrepreneurship education and training in order to address the challenge of graduate unemployment in the country.
He disclosed that IFC assisted the Fund to conduct the employability benchmarking assessment programme for some select universities, reflecting representative samples across the country between September 2022 and January 2023.
According to him, the objective of undertaking the assessment of practices and processes supporting employability in higher institutions was to identify sector trends and provide comparative institutional findings on employability situations on a system level, saying this would provide a starting baseline to guide the development of specific interventions at both institutional and system level.
Echono said: “The IFC has deployed its Vitae Employability Tool through a programmatic sector level approach by engaging the institutions to develop a sector level language and data-driven understanding of employability.
“The stakeholders debriefing session held on 6th February 2023 on the early findings, provided the opportunity for IFC to obtain inputs from key stakeholders, enriched the final Report with far-reaching recommendations submitted to the Fund in April 2023,” he stated.
The TETFund boss noted that the final report of the exercise was forwarded to all Nigerian universities for necessary action.
He further explained that the report covered the five dimensions of employability viz: relevance of learning, governance and strategy, employer engagement, career services/guidance, and alumni management.
It also highlighted how student employability support at the universities aligns to good practices globally.
“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).
“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 requires deliberate action on the part of all stakeholders to address our peculiar challenges,” Echono said.
Credit: Tribune
