The Speaker, Oyo State House of Assembly, Hon Adebo Ogundoyin has again decried the unemployability of most Nigerian graduates and has therefore called for more entrepreneurial training for the youth to make them skillfully and technically competent to face developmental challenges in life.
Ogundoyin spoke at the First Technical University, Ibadan when he led some other lawmakers on a working visit to the institution established about two years ago.
The Speaker said it was time for a review of the nation’s educational system at all levels to accommodate and make adequate provisions for more technical and professional training which will make the country’s graduates to be creator of jobs and wealth for sustainable economic development.
Ogundoyin noted that as a university, the First Technical University, Ibadan must carve a niche for itself as a trail blazer in the provision of functional education for technological innovation and advancement.
According to the Speaker, the Oyo state House of Assembly will formulate workable policies that will transform the education sector inline with the vision of Governor Seyi Makinde who has placed high priority on educational development as evident in the scrapping of school fees and other levies at primary and secondary school levels among other plans yet to be unveiled by this administration.
He congratulated the management of the university for sustaining the vision of the institution.
While speaking earlier, the Vice Chancellor First Technical Universal, Ibadan Prof Ayobami Salami who welcomed the leadership of the 9th Oyo Assembly to the university premises said the present educational system in the country is dysfunctional as it is not producing employers of labour.
Salami said the recent ranking of the university as the 43rd out of 252 higher institutions in Nigeria by Webometric, a global rating body is a manifestation of its promising commitment to changing the narrative of the Nigerian education landscape.
He maintained that it was the vision of the university to become Nigeria’s first self sustaing university adding that aside from their education, the students are mandated to acquire skills in robotics and automation, systems security among others.
The Vice Chancellor expressed optimism that the university will grow in leaps and bounds if there is a synergy and working relationship betwen the technocrats in the institution and the executive arm of givernment in Oyo state.
The Speaker and his team later inspected facilities at the university campus located on kilometer 15, Ibadan / Lagos Expressway Ibadan.