Executive Summary

To help university students achieve success, we did a baseline assessment by collating Nigerian university students' responses between the age of 18 and 30 (both male and female).

This survey results showed many students were interested in skills development, even though most of them lack the resources to enrol.

Some of the results seen were expected (students would like to learn skills at a cheap rate) while others were less predictable (females are less interested in developing skills than male).

Most importantly, skills development's interest and reason were higher for Self Improvement compared to Career Change and Profesional Certification.

With the results and conclusion drawn, students in the university need to be more aware of the benefits and need for skills development and equipped with better skills and knowledge. It is necessary to look at how schools can provide for this learning and adjust the curriculum to suit the world's current developments.

Background and Objectives

Why was the survey conducted?

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria's unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2020 is 27.1%, indicating that about 21,764,614 (21.7 million) Nigerians remain unemployed. Nigeria's youth remain the hardest hit by unemployment, with over 13.9 million people aged between 15 and 34 years unemployed. Graduates and post-graduates combined made up about 2.9 million of the total Nigerians that are unemployed.

In surprising data, out of the 35.5 million Nigerians that are fully employed, 28.8 million of them never attended school (6.29 million) or did not have a tertiary education (22.5).

There is a crucial need to bridge this gap between Graduate and post-graduate employment. What is being taught at the tertiary level of education is very much needed; however, there needs to be an improvement in the curriculum and employable skills to enable the Youths to be assets in the labour market. Therefore, it is imperative to understand how to equip the Youths with the needed skills in favourable and satisfactory ways.

With a thorough look at the skills gap and high employment rate in Nigeria and Africa at large, it is evident that there is a need to address the education system and skills development process.

This survey was carried out to understand the perspectives and challenges in skills development for University students.

The Goals and Objectives of this survey was to

Understand the skills that students had an interest in
Understand and assess the skill level of students enrolled in tertiary institutions
Understand the amount of time and money (finances) students are willing to put in to obtain a skill set
Understand the pain points of students in the Universities
Understand the reservations of the students towards obtaining a skill.

Methodology

This study was carried out in Nigerian Universities with students between the ages of 18-30, various course of study, and male and female.

The survey was carried out via Google Forms shared on the student group communication platforms. The participants for this survey were randomly chosen, as students interested in carrying out the survey used the link to the shared form.

Result

The survey asked key questions to help perceive students interest in learning new skills. A total of 150 clean responses were recorded from the study.

Key points from the result are highlighted below.

53.4% of the students do not have a laptop (technical resource) for use

In the selection of Technology skills to learn, 30.4% went for Graphic Design, 29.7% showed interest in Web Development, 26.4% selected Digital Marketing, and 13.5% opted for Product Management.

When asked the reason why they would be interested in learning the chosen skill; 68.2% chose Self Improvement as a reason as compared to Career Change (9.5%) and Professional Certification (22.3%)

90.5% of students are willing to pay the lowest range of amount to learn a new skill.

A flexible combination of both Online and On-site learning seemed more appealing to students. A percentage of 71.6% opted for this option.

The survey also recorded that students would rather spend less time learning a skill. 66.2% would want to invest about 5 hours a week in learning.

Nigerian University Students Skills Assessment Report for 2020

Conclusion

Students' major issues in skills development are the resources to learn the skills (finances and technical) and a kneen interest to follow through; most times due to lack of availability.

Our findings suggest that many students are interested in learning/developing new for self-development but would rather pay less to achieve this. However, these students meet roadblocks on this path due to lack of financial and technical resources, timing and schedule and failure to see the skills' relevance.

The results also show that students would rather spend fewer hours a week learning new skills. This may be as a result of other commitments or the tendency to lose concentration quickly.

This survey aims to compile these results and fashion out ways to address the issues identified, thereby building solutions for students to learn the skills they desire; improving their personal and professional goals.

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Our goal at InstinctHub is to help as many university students as possible to achieve success. We aim to bridge the gap in learning, skills development and acquiring the needed knowledge to be sought out. We see the advantage in personal growth and developing technical skills for future purposes. Contact us at skills@instincthub.com for more insight or collaboration.