The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and other local partners have commenced the conduct of a National Employability Benchmarking Programme in Nigerian Universities.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Mr. Sonny Echono, said this on Monday at the National Employability Benchmarking Programme in Abuja.
He said that the move was part of efforts to improve employability in the country.

Echono said the move would also help steer higher education institutions toward better alignment with market needs.
According to him, they will also measure how tertiary institutions are establishing a baseline for employability and potentially supporting the development of a strategic approach to sector intervention.

“IFC Vitae is a global first-of-a-kind, survey-based diagnostic instrument which assesses, processes, structures, and supports employability outcomes for higher education institutions.
“The program provides system and institutional-level insights that help identify key intervention areas that will enhance the employability ecosystem and improve graduate employability outcomes,” he said.

The executive secretary said that one of the key roles of TETFund was to develop an enabling system for young graduates to be part of the active labor market soon after graduation.
“This diagnostic led by the IFC is the first phase of designing an intervention to improve graduate employability outcomes.
“The program will help improve where higher education institutions in the country are presented in relation to global best practices, ” he said.

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He said that the first stage of the program was to develop a snapshot of current employability practices.
He said: “The focus was to collect, validate and analyze the data of participating universities in Nigeria.
“This stage was coordinated by Cognity Advisory, a local development consultancy working on behalf of TETFund with IFC global employability experts.

According to him, IFC Vitae has been deployed in different countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbeans, to hundreds of higher education institutions.
“To help them in developing a pathway for improving graduate outcomes and implementing institutional goals for graduate employability,” he said
Echono decried that Nigeria being a developing country was beset with the challenge of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment which was at its highest level.

“The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has put Nigeria’s unemployment at 33.3 percent, while youth unemployment in the country is at 42.5 percent and youth under-employment is 21.0 percent.
“Besides, the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index recently released by the Bureau reveals that 133 million people in Nigeria are poor, living below the poverty line.

“This implies that 63 percent of persons living within Nigeria are multi-dimensionally poor,” he said.
He said there was a need for Nigeria to align its intervention activities and strengthen its education delivery toward fostering an entrepreneurship culture.
According to him, these were the best ways for unleashing the enormous youth potential, addressing unemployment as well as other societal problems, and growing the economy.

The National Employability Benchmarking Programme is coordinated by TETFund with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, and the National Universities Commission, NUC.
IFC is utilizing its Vitae employability tool to provide a diagnostic macro snapshot of how well tertiary institutions in Nigeria are implementing employability best practices.