Poverty and Unemployment in Nigeria: The case for advancement of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET)

Abstract

Poverty and unemployment are two key socio-economic problems bedevilling the Nigerian polity. Despite the country’s rich natural and material resources, it has recently been labelled the world’s poverty capital. The level of unemployment continues to rise as many graduates who are churned out yearly from the educational institutions in the country are without jobs. Among the reasons given for increasing levels of poverty and unemployment is the lack of skilled human capital. Thus, Nigeria has remained slow in its development trajectory not only because of lack of technology but also due to the fact that the country’s large population does not possess relevant skills required for development in a fast globalising world, technologically driven and knowledge and information based. Despite successive governments’ programmes towards ameliorating the conditions of the citizens by reducing poverty and unemployment, the rising cases reveal that much still needs to be done. There is therefore need for more

studies aimed at proffering meaningful suggestions in terms of informing policies for addressing these problems in Nigeria. This is imperative not only because of the country’s growing population but also as a result of the negative consequences of poverty and unemployment on peace, security, stability and development of Nigeria. This article furthers the argument on the need for advancing Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as panacea for addressing the issues of poverty and unemployment in Nigeria. Its argument is anchored on the Human Capital Theory of Gary S. Becker. The objective of the paper is to examine the connection between TVET, human capital and skills development; and to highlight the challenges and prospects of TVET in Nigeria’s skills development agenda.