The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, has intensified calls for Nigerian youths to focus on skills and de-emphasise paper qualifications.
He explained that Nigeria focuses more on paper qualification than skills, adding that there are many job opportunities across the country but with inadequate skills to fill the gaps.
Pantami said these in his address on Friday, at the commissioning of Information and Communication Technology Incubation Park at the Gombe State University, built by the National Information Technology Development Agency.
His words, “Sometimes when you go to commission projects, any person you visit will bring many Curriculum Vitaes to you for employment. When I travel to a state, I come back with over 200 CVs; this is just an example we need to think outside the box. This is what many developed nations do; it is because of this (that) their citizens are not interested in working under government, except under sacrifice (sic).
“If you have got skills, and the enabling environment which has been provided for you, you will do better outside than within and at our own level, we are doing the best we can to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.”
The minister continued, “In developed countries, less preference is given to paper qualification, more of the skill. Paper qualification is supposed to be a validation of the skills acquired. It is the skill that does the work, not the paper.”
“In Nigeria, it is an area we are battling with. I have been engaging my colleagues in the Federal Executive Council so that we can join our hands together to ensure that outside academia, we should give less preference to paper qualification and focus more on skills.”
