This is how mentorship will boost graduate employability in Nigeria
Stutern, Nigeria’s internship marketplace has announced a partnership with Jobberman to tackle the menace of unemployment in Nigeria through internship placements.
The partnership will see Jobberman granting Stutern access to its more than 45,000 employer relationships as it intensifies the provision of internship opportunities to undergraduates, NYSC members and fresh graduates in Nigeria. “We have one focus. It is internships. Get experience, get skills, get paid,” said Taiwo Ayanleye, Co-founder of Stutern.com.
This recent move, however, might not be the panacea for unemployment in Nigeria. Unemployment has long been identified as a ticking time bomb in Nigeria and it is quite worrisome that employers claim Nigerian graduates are unemployable as a result of a lack of required skills for the present day job.
Entrepreneurship has been the popular solution to fix graduate unemployment in Nigeria. However, if entrepreneurship is the solution to unemployment, youth corp members should not add to the list of unemployed graduates after the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development training acquired during their service programme. As such, without mentorship, even the likes of Tony Elumelu’s programme to train 10,000 African entrepreneurs in 10 years might be a right step in the wrong direction.