The Nigerian National Universities Commission,NUC says only 20 percent of the database for the country’s graduates is accessible.
The Executive Secretary of the commission,Professor Julius Okojie said this in Abuja at parley by the commission and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO.
VON reported that Professor Okojie said a tracer study will assist the Nigerian university system gather required information needed to improve on the curriculum, teaching and research.
“The NUC has been requesting from the universities to provide 5 years database for Nigerian graduates and it is unfortunate that most of them have refused to bring this forward. I can tell you that less than 20 % of what we requested is made available and I must sound this warning that any universities that fail to provide 5 years database of graduates from its university will be sidelined.
If we have carried out accreditation of programmes for such schools we will withhold results from them and other quality assurance processes will be withdrawn from them.”
He explained that the “tracer study is an important activity for us at NUC aimed at building robust links between institutions, their graduates and the labour market. It focuses on gathering necessary information required to improve the curriculum, teaching and research in the Nigerian university system.”
There is no doubt that tracing our graduates will assist the NUS in measuring the extent of professional and academic careers pursued by our graduates.”
Relevance of degrees
Professor Okojie stated that the objective of the study was to ascertain the relevance of the degrees obtained from the university system to the labour market.
“The programme will ascertain the relevance of the NUS curricula to the job functions of the graduates in the various work places as well as their professional development in their various fields.”
He added that the contributions of Nigerian university graduates in the public and private sectors would also be ascertained.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, represented by a top official,said that it was pertinent for Nigerian universities to produce the skilled workforce that matched the needs of the market both in quality and quantity.
Her said that the survey would provide information required to evaluate the employability of graduates of science and engineering programmes.
“A clear understanding of what happens to our graduates and how likely they are to find employment related and relevant to what they studied, is a major concern.”
He added that the tracer survey was cosistent with the Federal Government’s National Industrial Revolution Plan.
The pilot tracer study is focused on petro-chemical and steel industries.
36 universities in Nigeria (public,private and state) have been selected for pilot programmes of the study.
