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In July 2008, I began a six months Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), popularly called Industrial Training (IT) at the Centre for Energy Research and Development (CERD), a centre of excellence in nuclear energy research in Nigeria, managed by the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority located in the premises of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
The unemployed graduates queuing for job test at National Stadium, Abuja
As undergraduates, my colleagues and I had limited access to some equipment in CERD because they were very expensive. One of the most important facilities CERD has is the 1.7Mev Tandem Accelerator (a sophisticated facility used in nuclear energy research). As at 2008, the facility cost over one million US Dollars, as there were only two in sub-Saharan Africa, i.e. one in Nigeria and the other in South Africa.
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A professor in CERD went to Durham University, UK, for further training on the use of the 1.7 Mev Tandem Accelerators. On his resumption to office, he held a seminar on the knowledge he had gained by demonstrating them on power-point slides.
Towards the end of his presentation, he showed us a picture of three people; himself, his instructor and a young lady. He said: ‘‘the young lady is an undergraduate of chemistry department of Durham University, who had just concluded the same three months training on the use of the facility with me”. He also said that: ‘‘the 1.7Mev Tandem Accelerator is located in the Chemistry Department of Durham University”.
The seminar generated a great deal of turbulence in my brain. I asked myself, can you imagine a UK undergraduate undergoing the same kind of training with a Nigerian University professor? Great and small facilities are located in various departments of higher institutions in developed countries so that students can acquire adequate practical experiences but this is not the case here in Nigeria.
So, I compared what the quantum of impact the Durham University undergraduate (as well as her classmates) would add to the economy of her country when she eventually graduates with what a graduate of Nigerian tertiary institution adds to the economy of Nigeria. To be factual, the seminar was an eye opener to the problem of unemployment in Nigeria.
Moreover, when considering the extent of self-sufficiency Nigeria has in her health sector, it must be noted that Nigeria keeps doing a great job in the training of qualified doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and pharmacists.
In my opinion, the health sector -a highly skilled sector in Nigeria is the best sector we have in the economy, because we do not have expatriates managing their field (when compared to the engineering and other skilled sectors). As terrible as the Nigerian unemployment situation is, you don’t easily come across unemployed medical doctors.
The self-sufficiency Nigeria has in her health sector is simply due to ‘training’ and ‘institutionalisation’ of that noble profession. A medical student gains admission into a university begins rigorous theoretical and practical training in school. He continues his training beyond the classroom settings in specially designed hospitals called teaching hospitals.
A medical student combines his lectures with real life hospital experiences, so he doesn’t need to go for SIWES or Industrial Training like myself and other engineering students did. So, I keep asking two questions.
Firstly, what would be the quality of a fresh graduate doctor if almost all the trainings were mere classroom training? I mean training without the teaching hospital experience, but replaced with a six months medical/industrial training (a medical training in any kind of hospital/clinic/health centre).
Secondly, what would be the quality of a Nigerian graduate engineer and scientist, if given adequate training (both theoretical and practical experiences)? Without mincing words, I believe we can see a major reason why most Nigerian graduates cannot create jobs as well as why they are unemployable.
The fresh graduate doctor goes into the labour market with requisite skills as he properly attends to real life situations as a result of the adequate training he has got. For the science and engineering students, instead of receiving ”inside-out-training” (adequate training on campuses to perform after graduation) like the doctors (nurses, pharmacists, architects, accountants and legal practitioners), what they get is an ”outside-in-training” (scavenging for practical knowledge after graduation).
At this juncture, I need to proffer some pragmatic and proactive solutions to the protracted problem of unemployment:
Firstly, there are identified private organisations that have got massive investments in education, health, media and other socio-economic activities. They can equally be harnessed for job creation, especially in the agricultural sector. I am confident that if these organisations are properly harnessed, they are capable of providing investments worth over 100 billion naira in the agricultural sector over the next ten years.
Secondly, I believe in the adequate training of undergraduates which is a panacea to abundant job production. I mean a training that will ensure adequate knowledge in both theory and practical. I believe in the institutionalisation of every course of study in every tertiary institution in Nigeria, a system that will operate like the teaching hospitals of medical students. In fact, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Engineering and science students should have state of the art facilities in the recommended ”engineering/science villages” in order to replace the empty laboratories and workshops. We need ”centres of innovation”, not just ”centres of operation and maintenance”. We need ‘‘Nigerian technologies” not just ”made in Nigeria products”.
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I do not subscribe to the Nigerian method of gaining practical experiences in which Industrial Training is meant to provide, because we have seen that medical students have adequate expertise as a result of the training they received in their specialized institutions.
Thirdly, undergraduates studying agricultural courses should be empowered (both with finance and modern implements) to own farms before and after graduation. I believe funding of our agriculture student/graduates is possible since the government can pay huge sums to house officers (final year medical students).
We need to fix educated people (the graduates of agriculture) in our agricultural sector, as in people who can access information, modern tools and techniques for abundant job production as it is done in developed countries.
My point as touching entrepreneurship is that it is an inordinate thing to degenerate graduates into practicing entrepreneurship of making ‘pop corn’, ‘chin-chin’, ‘frying akara’, ‘selling imported wears’, ‘operating a beer palour,’ laundry, salon’ and ‘businesses’ after graduation.
I believe in a graduate entrepreneurship where an electrical engineering graduate can venture into electrical equipment (such as electric motors, photovoltaic cells, transformers, high tension cables, power generation turbines and so on) design and manufacturing while other graduates do similar things in their fields.
Lastly, only very few Nigerians know that multinational oil companies such as Shell, Chevron and Agip are involved in operations far beyond oil exploration in their countries of origin. As at today, Nigeria has no reason to export crude oil as long as these oil companies can invest into oil refining, petrochemical and gas-to-power generation.
What we need to do is to set out modalities that will ensure they refine our crude oil, make petrochemicals for local consumption and export whatever remains as this will help create much jobs. I advocate that the government should reverse the privatisation process of PHCN because the beneficiaries of the privatisation have no prior experience in the power sector, neither have they made marginal investment since they took charge.
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Despite the purported sale, the federal government is still investing billions of naira into the power sector; an anomalous situation. I believe that multinational energy giants such as General Electric and Siemens should be encouraged to take over PHCN and invest in power generation, transmission and distribution in order to fast track job creation opportunities.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of ZENITHBLOG.com.
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