The situation has reached a breaking point, prompting reactions from governments and concerned citizens, especially employers who require the services of these graduates. Parents and guardians are dissatisfied with the situation their children are forced to face.
It is time the federal government swung into action to salvage the situation. The pervasive ineptitude in the country’s university system needs to be curtailed.
Graduates are being thrown out of employment because of their poor performance. They fail to meet up their employers’ expectations.
But do we really need to blame these graduates? Are the lecturers not responsible for this ugly trend? What effort has ASUU made to sanitise the university system? Do universities have internal quality assurance departments? What are the roles of the NUC?
Lecturers are no longer committed to pedagogic service delivery. They lack what it takes to prepare the students to perform certain tasks in the society. They are bankrupt of the relevant skills needed to solve problems around them.
There are three (3) categories of lecturers who should be held responsible for graduates’ unemployability. University authorities, ASUU, NUC and the government should focus on them to tackle the problem of unemployability.
There is a category of lazy lecturers whose commitment to task is notoriously poor. These lecturers hardly show up for classes. They plagiarise information to prepare materials for courses assigned to them. They are money conscious. It only pleases them to explain areas of concentration to the students a week before examination. The males in this category are the agents of promiscuity. They are delighted in deriving sexual gratification from their female students. Their minds are preoccupied by immorality.
There is another category of intellectually weak lecturers. They lack the intellectual gravitas needed to execute the task before them. Their students find it difficult to understand the concepts they teach. They intimidate their students to cover up their incompetence. They are certified, but cannot perform. They lack the intellectual strength to carry out tangible research that will bring innovation to their classes. They prepare and use same course materials and course contents for all levels.
There is a category of peripatetic lecturers who abandon their primary tasks to teach elsewhere. These ones belong to the tiny cabal on campus. Not even the school authorities could challenge them.
When universities are populated by these elements, what do we expect from the graduates produced by these universities.
I believe that this challenge can be resolved if the right steps are taken.
First, I will suggest that the department of internal quality assurance be established at every university. It is the responsibility of this department to monitor the lecturers and ensure they are committed to work.
And in order to ensure effectiveness, members of the quality assurance team should comprise officials from the ministry of education, leadership of the students union, some parents of the students and selected lecturers from other universities.
Also, lecturers can also be monitored by opening a complaint portal that will afford the students the opportunity to express themselves regarding lecturers’ ineptitude.
