From Moshood Karim
The urgent need to overhaul Nigeria’s university education system to prioritise skills and entrepreneurship took centre stage on Tuesday at the 13th Students’ Product Exhibition of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State with a stark warning that institutions which fail to adapt risk becoming irrelevant.
Speaking at the event in Okada, themed “From Classroom Concept to Job-Creating Enterprises: A Guide to Establishing Ventures that Foster Employment Opportunities and Transform the Economic Landscape of Nigeria,” the Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Professor Idris Muhammad Bugaje, said Nigeria must abandon certificate-driven learning and embrace skills as the new global currency of labour.
Professor Bugaje, the guest speaker, argued that while university education remains important, it must be retooled to deliver employable skills if it is to address the country’s crippling youth unemployment and rising insecurity.
“We must bring on board skills and entrepreneurship training. Degrees should not be awarded on learning and character alone, but on learning, character and skills. This is the new paradigm shift,” he said.
“Any university that seeks to remain relevant in the coming decades must rejig its curriculum and deliberately integrate skills and entrepreneurship training.”
He described Nigeria’s education system as “dysfunctional”, blaming the absence of practical skills and entrepreneurship for the widening gap between education and employment. According to him, global economies now thrive on skills, not paper qualifications.
Drawing international comparisons, Bugaje noted that China converted 600 public universities into skills training centres in 2017, while India plans to transform 80 per cent of its university colleges into skills-focused institutions within a decade.
“If universities are to stay relevant, we must re-engineer them,” he insisted.
On Nigeria’s unemployment crisis, the NBTE boss painted a grim picture.
“Today, about 24.5 million Nigerians are unemployed. Many of them are graduates of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education,” he said, adding that the crisis is fuelling insecurity across the country.
He lamented what he called Nigeria’s “education-to-employment disconnect”, stressing that functional education, as envisaged in the national policy on education, can only be achieved by aligning classroom innovation with market needs.
From skills analysis and inclusive leadership to technology adoption and access to funding, Bugaje outlined a pipeline for turning campus ideas into scalable businesses with real-world impact.
Citing China’s early exposure of pupils to hands-on skills from basic education, he said the Asian giant’s dominance in global manufacturing and its fast-rising GDP were products of deliberate investment in both soft and hard skills.
“Soft skills include digital literacy, teamwork, adaptability, empathy and prudent management. Hard skills range from construction, welding and fabrication to agriculture, fashion and other technical competencies,” he said.
Bugaje blamed Nigeria’s skills deficit for heavy reliance on foreign labour in major infrastructure projects. He recalled that the Dangote Refinery, the world’s largest single-train refinery, was built largely by imported skilled labour from India, while thousands of specialised welders were also required for the AKK gas pipeline project.
“I am not blaming the refinery. I am blaming our education system for failing to produce the skilled manpower needed to build such projects,” he said.
He added that Nigeria could turn its youthful population into an economic asset by exporting skilled labour, just as Bangladesh and India do, earning billions in foreign exchange annually.
To students, Bugaje pointed to federal government initiatives such as the Student Venture Capital Grant (SVCG), urging them to seize available opportunities.
“It is a grant, not a loan. It can help bridge the gap between ideas and execution,” he said.
He outlined practical steps for launching job-creating ventures, including market research, strategic networking, teamwork, skills assessment, targeted training and leveraging funding and incubation programmes.
Highlighting challenges facing entrepreneurship, he identified limited access to finance, weak education quality, poor use of digital platforms and fragile public-private partnerships as major obstacles.
In a memorable conclusion, Bugaje told the audience:
“Education is the seed. Skills are the tools. Entrepreneurship is the harvest — the harvest that will create jobs and transform our communities.”
Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Professor Lawrence Ikechukwu Ezemonye, praised the institution’s founder for his foresight and urged students to look beyond certificates.
“This exhibition is your first marketplace, your first pitch and your first step into the world of value creation,” he told the students.
“The world outside does not reward certificates alone; it rewards skills, innovation, resilience and problem-solving.”
He challenged students to become employers of labour and contributors to national GDP, rather than job seekers.
Also speaking, the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Skills Acquisition, Dr (Mrs) Mary Josiah, reaffirmed the university’s commitment to hands-on training and financial support for student-led enterprises.
“We have taught our students how to make money on campus before graduation,” she said, adding that the university follows up on student businesses and provides equipment and seed support.
At the end of the exhibition, the School of Music emerged overall winner, followed by the School of Fashion and Bridal in second place, while the School of Tailoring came third — a practical demonstration, organisers said, of how classroom ideas can be turned into job-creating ventures.
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