…as CEO PGFA bags Future Awards, Ford Foundation prize for Youth Employment

By Josephine Agbonkhese

THERE is an enormous disequilibrium between graduates churned out by most Nigerian tertiary institutions and skills required by employers, and this margin accounts for why half of the nation’s graduates cannot be employed. This was the assertion of the CEO of Poise Graduate Finishing Academy, PGFA, Mrs Ukinebo Dare, who further argued that the current curriculum used in Nigerian higher institutions of learning does not reflect the realities of time.

Mrs Mavi Isibor(2nd left), Group Chief Executive Office, Poise Nigeria; Mrs Ukinebo Dare(2nd right), CEO, Poise Graduate Finishing Academy, PGFA; Nonye Cally-Bechi(1st right), Head of Programmes, Poise Nigeria, at the conference in Lagos.

This gap is ever widening, according to Ukinebo, who has just clinched the Future Awards and the Ford Foundation prize for ‘Youth Employment’. “While the curriculum has remained static, the needs of organisations remain ever-changing”.

Ukinebo who spoke at conference organised by Poise in Lagos to solicit private/public sector partnership towards re-engineering the nation’s workforce and reducing unemployment, said the quest to shrink this widening gap gave birth in 2012 to the PSENSE Employability Skills Certification by PGFA designed with the input of Nigeria-based corporate firms and US-based Briddle Consulting firm.

The certification which was endorsed by the Nigerian University Commission in 2013 is already being entrenched in the curriculum of some higher institutions of learning in the country. “Soft skills such as creative thinking, emotional intelligence, problem solving, business writing, communication, how to sell themselves as well as promote their organisation, writing business plans and much more, are lacking in most graduates.

These are, therefore, what we teach at our graduate academy to shrink the ever-widening gap, because we believe that for Nigeria to be truly great, the gap should not be this wide. We’ve since 2012 impacted the lives of over 10,000 graduates and attained an employment rate of over 87%,” Ukinebo said.

Imploring stakeholders as well as governing councils of tertiary institutions to take a decisive stand against graduate unemployability, Mrs Mavi Isibor, Group Chief Executive Office, Poise Nigeria, said: “The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics puts Nigeria’s unemployment rate at an alarming increase of 7.5% in the first quarter of the year.

Graduate unemployability

In addition to this, our country is riddled with economic shortfalls and youth restiveness. “This menace could be brought to the barest minimum if young people are thoroughly trained to take ownership of themselves to be gainfully engaged in one venture or the other.

“Our Ukinebo is a role model of the ownership initiative. She took PGFA from concept papers five years ago, to the pedestal of winning the prestigious award for youth employment, not just in Nigeria but the whole of Africa.”