{"id":6287,"date":"2021-04-13T14:07:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T14:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/?p=6287"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:55:13","slug":"nigerian-graduates-struggle-for-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/nigerian-graduates-struggle-for-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian graduates struggle for survival after finishing their degree"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

By Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When Saadu Yusuf Olatunji graduated from the faculty of education at the University of Ilorin in 2012, he didn\u2019t know his first-degree certificate wouldn\u2019t play any part in getting him a job. Now 32, he says that had he known what he knows now, he wouldn\u2019t have bothered pursuing his second degree.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Olatunji is among hundreds of thousands of graduates in Nigeria whose degree certificates have failed to guarantee them a decent-paying job. Instead of finding a job in the field they studied in, they are forced to make do with menial jobs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Olatunji, for example, studied and aimed to be a university professor, but after graduating, couldn\u2019t find a job that suited him. He now owns a shop where he types, prints and photocopies documents for the students of the University of Ilorin. \u201cI graduated with a second class, upper division result. I studied educational guidance and counselling, but I\u2019ve been into this business before school,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The shortcomings of Nigeria\u2019s education system have shaped a generation of graduates who no longer count on their degrees to better their quality of life. \u201cSee, the moment you\u2019re in school, you should already be looking for another means to live. Certificate is like flag. It gives you the respect, but job, it can only come through opportunities,\u201d Olatunji said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In 2017, he finished his master\u2019s degree with a Phd grade, a grade used for \u201cthose that scored above 60 percent.\u201d But the economic pressure is piling up and his degree hasn\u2019t helped him thus far. \u201cI married not too soon ago, and I have a kid,\u201d he told Sahelien.com.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Nigeria is the seventh-most populous country in the world with an estimated population of about\u00a0206 million<\/a>. The country is the most populous country in Africa and has one of the largest youth populations in the world. But the unemployment rate<\/a> of the youth is dragging down its economy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Professor Mahfouz Adedimeji, vice chancellor of Ahman Pategi University, a private university in Kwara state, said that the pursuit of education is not the problem. \u201cIt is the systems that support it that fail,\u201d he said, arguing that the government should do more to rejuvenate higher education. \u201cIt\u2019s crucial to get appropriate human and material resources in shape for education to achieve its aims, goals and objectives in every context,\u201d he said,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

One of the underlying factors causing young graduates\u2019 problems is that they were not in their program of choice to begin with. This is the case for Oladunjoye Kehinde a 26-year-old graduate of transportation management and technology at Federal University of Technology, Minna, who was unable to study her first choice, computer engineering. Many students who don\u2019t get into their programs of choice will continue with any given course because university admission is not cheap.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There is a limit of students each department of each university can take yearly, and admissions officers sometimes flout the rules to give special treatment to their friends and personal contacts. Some students who write JAMB (an examination written to determine admission) and score above the cut off mark get denied of the admission because those who score below have connections with officials who help them secure admission.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Kehinde, a graduate of information and transportation technology, had to hustle before she could start a business and feed herself. After completing her one-year service at the National Youth Service Corps, she used the last payment of her monthly allowance paid for serving the country, and a loan she took, to start up a business. \u201cI am into business presently. I sell shea butter product,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was during my service, the last allowance I collected, when I was coming home finally and I was thinking of what to do, and I collected a loan and started it. There were a lot of business ideas in my head but I just picked that,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Sulaiman Fawaz, a Nigerian economist, explained that the planning is that the government should \u201crevamp the educational system by thorough investment.\u201d He further said that the government should create an enabling environment for \u201cgradua-preneurs.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Hundreds of thousands of graduates and post-graduates like Kehinde and Olatunji are fighting to provide for their basic needs without the help of their certificates after spending strenuous years in university to get them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cAs education is about making change and solving problems. I think the mentality of seeking white collar jobs has to change in students and graduates of universities,\u201d Professor Adedimeji said. \u201cTo make education succeed, it has to be adequately nurtured by every part of society. If it is not properly nurtured, its goals in the recipients won’t be achieved. It is therefore imperative to create systems and environments that will provide quality, functional, balanced and standard education.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi When Saadu Yusuf Olatunji graduated from the faculty of education at the University of Ilorin in 2012, he didn\u2019t know his first-degree certificate wouldn\u2019t play any part in getting him a job. Now 32, he says that had he known what he knows now, he wouldn\u2019t have bothered pursuing his second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,16,19,65],"tags":[102,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-6287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured-west-africa","8":"category-politique","9":"category-societe","10":"category-west-africa","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-nigeria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6287"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6602,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6287\/revisions\/6602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}