Multi-Faceted Training and Employment Approaches as Panacea to Higher Education Graduate Unemployment In Nigeria

Abstract

This paper posits that if higher education graduate unemployment was only a mere suspicion in the Nigeria of the 1970s, it became an important social challenge in the mid-1980s. A review of the literature revealed that skills mismatch between the training offered by universities and skills required by the market, structural mismatch between middle and upper level manpower production, the scrapping of National Manpower Planning Board and poor attitude towards vocational training are the major factors currently fuelling graduate unemployment in Nigeria. This paper therefore develops a framework for a new policy orientation in matters of higher education employment in Nigeria which will not only take advantage of the existing strengths within the Nigerian economy but will open up massive  employment opportunities for higher education graduates. This framework calls for the deliberate opening up of five economic domains for graduate employment, namely, the agricultural, mining, hospitality, vending and Information Communication Technologies. The paper identifies retraining and the provision of basic social amenities to Nigerian communities as catalysts to improved graduate employment in the country as these measures will contribute towards the reduction of social agitation within the communities.

Keywords: Multi-track employment, Multi-faceted training, Higher  education, Graduate unemployment, Graduate employment policy framework, Nigeria.