The management of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Thursday, launched a career center designed to tackle the growing unemployment rate in Nigeria.
The Rector, Adeoye Odedeji, during the unveiling of the center on the polytechnic’s campus, highlighted that its creation followed a recent directive from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). He explained that the directive, issued at a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, aimed to close the gap between academia and industry.
Odedeji further expressed concern over the country’s rising unemployment, attributing it to a mismatch between graduates’ skills and the needs of the job market.
He said, “What we have now is a situation in which someone is highly qualified but under-skilled. They are under-skilled because, while in school, they do not have access to the necessary information, advice, and services. That’s where the Centre for Career Services comes in.”
According to Odedeji, the centre would ensure that graduates of the institution are well-prepared with the requisite skills needed to thrive in the job market and become job creators.
He continued, “The main focus of the centre is that whatever programme a student is undertaking here, it must prepare them such that, when they graduate, they can either start their own business or become self-employed. If they do not become self-employed, they must have sufficient information to enable them to find a job or be employable.
“So, this centre fully supports the various efforts being undertaken by the Centre for Skill Development and the Centre for Entrepreneurship. That’s why all of them are housed in the same facility. It’s a hub, so we can call this area a skill hub.”
“I want to encourage the heads of all three units here to collaborate and work as a team to achieve the major objective of reducing unemployment in Nigeria, ensuring that graduates no longer face the challenge of skill mismatches, and preventing the discrepancy between fields of study and job opportunities.”
Also speaking, the pioneering Director of the centre, Shola Adeosun, highlighted that the centre would seek to find solutions to the problem of unemployment in the country and promote academic excellence within the institution and nationwide.
He urged students and alumni of the institution to take advantage of the centre’s initiatives to address job deficits.
“The centre is an initiative of TETFUND. The objective is to find solutions to the problem of unemployment in Nigeria, and the centre is charged with a lot of responsibilities.
“As we unveil the unit, the mission, vision, and objectives, brief as they are, will signal to the academic community that there is a new initiative set to accelerate academic excellence at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic,” Adeosun said.
