A Civil Society Organisation, FIDES ET RATIO Academy has rolled out massive skills training programmes for Nigerians.
The Managing Director of the organisation, Paul Chukwuma at a news conference on the state of education in Abuja on Wednesday, attributed the high rate of unemployment in the country to shortage of skilled manpower.
He explained that a situation where graduates have certificates but lacked the required skills for employability was unacceptable.
He stressed the need for stakeholders in education to lay more emphasis on skills rather than paper qualification for economic growth.
“I discovered the basic issue we have in our educational system is that the educational system we were introduced to, and to a very large extent we still carry along with, is deficient in the key essential elements that every human being should think about, and that is skills.
“We prioritised paper qualifications over skills; everybody wants to be a PhD holder; everybody wants to be a professor, even when you cannot defend that title,” he said.
Chukwuma said for Nigeria to be at par with other nations of the world especially in digital technology, it was necessary to support the talent of youths.
He noted that some education institutions in Europe have some of their technical departments headed by individuals without degrees but with skills,
He, therefore, said Fides Et Ratio Academy was established to change the narrative by focusing on skill development.
“In 2006, Fides Et Ratio Academy was established as a training institute that will basically engage in fulfilling this mandate, which I have identified in my own little way while planning to also set up a higher institution of learning.
“And in 2020/2021, I was able to establish a private university, but it took off effectively in 2022, ” he said.
while commending the present administration for prioritising skills in the educational system, he said the organisation was collaborating with some government agencies to train Nigerians both in the public and private sectors to produce globally competitive individuals.
Chukwuma also advocated for a mechanism that would see Nigerian youths channel their uncommon ICT talents into positive use.
“The kind of brain our guys are putting in all those funny characters and fraudulent activities is not an ordinary brain because it is not easy to break into a system that is protected by all manners of firewalls.
“Why don’t we get them to channel these to more productive use? With that we will be doing a computing system that exists nowhere, ” he posited.