The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has urged Universities in the country to devote greater attention to enterpreneurship training in order to produce graduates that will create job opportunities, not job seekers.
Inuwa stated this while receiving the management of Federal University of Agriculture Zuru, Kebbi State, Northern Nigeria, led by its Vice Chancellor, Professor Musa Isyaku Ahmed.
The NITDA boss described University’s role in finding lasting solution to Nigeria’s unemployment as critical, in view of the large number of young people graduating annually.
“I urge you to continue to emphasize more on enterpreneurship trainings so that graduates will be able to become job creators instead of job seekers.Mr President has the passion for job creation, a passion of diversifying our economy and so on, moving from resource based economy to knowledge based or Digital Economy, and for Nigeria to achieve that, we need to have the human capital, which our population is the greatest resources,” he said.
Inuwa noted that most graduates coming out from the universities are becoming liability to the country, waiting for white collar jobs, hence the need for the university system to produce jobs owners instead of job seeks.
“Universities can be used as mentoring, training and couching grounds to the students, encouraging them to start their own business while in school,” he insisted.
Commenting on NITDA’s National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) programme, Inuwa stated that it was an initiative of the Agency designed to support the Nigerian young farmers that are very passionate about making a career in farming.
“Firstly, we all need to eat to survive, how can we increase our produce, how can we use technology to change the way we do our farming, and how can we make it a more fancy job, so that these young graduates can also embrace farming as a career,” he noted.
The Director General explained that the Agency has concluded arrangements to engage Universities’ research works practically on the farms with a view to achieving the set goal.
“This year, we are going to re–strategise our process and say why not work with Universities’ research institutions, where most of their works end on the shelves, why can’t we convert those researches and move into the farm to experiment,“ he added.
The Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture Zuru, Professor Musa Isyaku Ahmed, said they were at the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters on a familiarisation visit to further avail themselves with what they have been seeing and hearing about NITDA’s impact on so many sectors, particularly the tertiary institutions.
While soliciting for the collaborative support of NITDA in its intervention programmes, the Prof also called for paradigm shift in the nation’s education system.
“We are aware of NITDA’s finger prints in many Nigerian tertiary institutions, we here soliciting for same to our newly established Institution,” he added.
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