Youth
Kaiser Group, a construction outfit, has identified lack of soft skills among young graduates as largely responsible for their unemployability.
Mr Igbuan Okaisabor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the organisation, made the attribution on Wednesday at a weeklong soft skills training for some final year students of the University of Lagos.
The students were drawn from construction-related departments such as electrical, civil and mechanical engineering; building technology, quantity survey and geo formatics.
According to him, soft skills, which are usually not acquired by students during their stay in tertiary schools, are what employers of labour watch out for.
He listed the soft skills to include communication, presentation, leadership and team building skills as well as self confidence and interpersonal relationship abilities.
“The degrees one acquires, be it in the first class or second class upper division, usually do not play up prominently.
“The industries have discovered that there are missing links between what the universities or tertiary institutions produce and what employers need.
“We are in a country with an estimated population of about 200 million people and high unemployment rate.
“Of this figure, the youth make up a larger percentage and they cannot create jobs,” he said.
He said that many employers of labour could not find the right people to employ.
“So, we felt the need to do something in that direction as part of our corporate social responsibility,” he said.
He said that although success of a construction business would require technical knowledge, soft skills were important.
“Here, we are talking about communication, presentation, leadership and team building skills, as these are what will ensure maximum output in the world of works.
“When job seekers lack such skills, it becomes difficult for them to integrate and deliver properly on their duties,” he added.
According to him, it is worrisome that most young graduates seeking employment can hardly write letters or communicate seamlessly.
He said that some foreigners took over many jobs that should be done by Nigerians because of lack of such skills and not technical incompetence.
“We as a construction company are in a business that tries to fix economic benefits, while making social impacts; so, we believe in improving the lives of people around us.
“The emphasis here, too, is the need for industries to be more responsive to the needs of their immediate communities by partnering with the academia in order to empower the youth especially by assisting them to improve on their chosen endeavours.
“There is no doubt that government has not invested enough in the education of the people.
“Here is a country with almost 200 million people and the annual budget in education is usually less than what a country of 20 million propke has set aside for its education sector.
“Having said this, it is not also enough to just throw money into a problem; there must be a structure to providing a solution; otherwise, the money will go down the drain,” he said.
Prof. Mike Adebamowo, Dean, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Lagos, said that the initiative was one of the visions of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, for the university, in terms of entrepreneurship skills and bridging the gap between the academia and the industry.
According to him, the vice chancellor had the vision of making the institution’s graduates more relevant and globally competitive.
“I want to say that this initiative by Kaiser Group is a step in the right direction, and we are very excited about it.
“This soft skills training is very essential, and we are glad that it is coming at this time, and we appreciate them for this laudable programme.
“They were with us last year to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which has to do with the group collaborating with us in research as well as providing scholarship for indigent students in the construction space.
“It is also good to understand what soft skills are and be able to develop the aptitude, character and all other such skills needed in the market such as time management, punctuality, integrity, interpersonal relationship and being a team player.
“Without these skills, one becomes a wreck and irrelevant, regardless of one’s academic achievements as one will not be able to connect with the society and the industry,” the dean said. (NAN)
– Nov. 14, 2018 @ 15:35 GMT |
Tags: Job seekers lack communication Leadership presentation team building skills – group
