The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has hinted that the new education curriculum would focus on skills and entrepreneurship to enhance graduates’ employability.
Speaking at a one day ‘Transforming Education Summit’ organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC), yesterday in Abuja, Adamu noted that the whole world is now focusing on education because of the central role it plays.
Represented by the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, the minister said the summit, which is being held ahead of the global summit in September in New York by the United Nations Secretary General, provides an opportunity to brainstorm on the many challenges facing Nigeria’s education sector such as poor funding, out-of-school children among others, as to find a sustainable solution and transform the sector.
According to him, five thematic areas have been identified for discussion “The issue of curriculum, for example, it has become important that the education sector should be increasingly more relevant and the changing role of the teacher being a facilitator rather than an absolute harbinger of knowledge.
“The type of curriculum that will now focus more on skills, entrepreneurship because we want to enhance employability. As we have been preaching, we don’t want to produce graduates that are looking for government employment,” he said.
The minister stated that the president has approved an institute in Abuja that resembles the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which will serve as a hub where all the top ideas for growing the country will be incubated and released for various sectors of our economy.
According to him, this institute will take off this year.
Also speaking, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami, commended the NUC for developing a new curriculum for Nigerian Universities, saying it was apt due to the rate of unemployability of graduates in the country.
“We always complain about unemployment, I agree that there is unemployment but the percentage is not as we think. The significant challenge we have in Nigeria is the problem of unemployability, this is the major problem particularly when it comes to sciences, engineering, and technology.
“We need to provide the relevant skills so that they will be able to confront any challenge and can be able to apply for any job globally,” he said.
Pantami further explained that soft skills are most sought after especially in big tech companies such as critical thinking, analytical thinking, collaborative skills, project management, problem-solving, and presentation skills, among others.
“Today if you apply for a job in the global tech giant, they hardly ask you about the university you attended or class of degree but are interested in knowing your hard skills and soft skills this is what they are interested in,” he stressed.