Higher Ed Institutions must Meet Demands of 21st Century Business Employers

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With the gradual rise in the costs of availing college tuition, the expectations from parents in regard to their kids’ career prospects are growing higher and higher. But what is making today’s college students worried is the limited opportunities they are getting from the 21^st century employers. Prior to enrolling in any course for higher studies, the majority of students today ensure that they are able to obtain relevant skills from it that can help them remain exposed to high career prospects in the long-run.

Higher education institutions are doing a good job

Surveys have showed that that there is indeed a huge gap between business leaders and provosts in terms of preparing students for the forthcoming workforce. As per the Inside Higher Ed survey 2014, 96% of the provosts opined that the higher education institutions were doing incredibly well in preparing students for achieving professional skills.

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On the other hand, the Gallup survey after taking 1,012 members of the public and 628 business leaders into consideration, found:

·        Only 11% of the business leaders are aware of the fact that graduates today possess relevant skills

·        14% of the public have strongly supported the fact that the 21^st century graduates are quite competent to achieve success at their respective workplaces

Although a few provosts pointed out pitfalls in the poll, one thing came crystal clear. Higher education leaders today must be quite attentive towards what business experts demand from upcoming graduates. Reality says that only 9% of today’s business employers emphasise on an organisation’s reputation while the rest mostly eye upon the skills obtained by new graduates.

Opportunities for new age employees are rising

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Since new industries are popping up with the passage of time, business managers running world class companies now aim to pick graduates having postgraduate degrees. In fact, there are several companies that give their employers the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills through these programmes. Even a good number of colleges have started collaborating with postgraduate boot camps on the ways leading to their workplaces.

The Chronicle of Higher Education once reported that are several companies where employees get the opportunity to enhance their computer and technology skills. Moreover, the concept of electronic learning has assisted a lot of companies in training their employees in a very cost-effective manner. In fact, the concept of completing a course online has excited a lot of employers and a good number of them have realised the importance.

Online university courses are gaining relevance

Online courses in business management have even gained global recognition not only among students but also among working professionals. Surprisingly, the UK universities that used to only offer traditional courses are now giving international students to enrol in online courses for completing higher studies. In fact, this has triggered the relevance of online university courses that have now become the most convenient career option for new age learners who can obtain necessary skills from any corner of the world.

So, what is essential now is to introduce such career options for students who would not only be earning credentials just for the sake of it but would also be attaining workplace skills. The higher education providers must concentrate on the very way of delivering courses online that can absolutely inspire students to upgrade their knowledge and skills and thereafter meet their career goals quite affordably.

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Substandard Public Education Sector Relies Greatly On Private Educational Institutions in Nigeria

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Public educational institutions in Nigeria are in quite lacklustre state, and mass trust is greatly inclined on private educational institutions. No matter what the level of education, primary, secondary or tertiary, everywhere the trend seems to be the same. As observed by Okafor et al, “falling standards leading to pushing the goal excellence to the back burner as public confidence in our educational system is eroded”, and this lack of confidence is something very prominent in Nigerian education system today.

If we go deep into this matter, we find that this consistent poor standard of Nigerian public education sector owes greatly its dwindled state to the poor planning and lack of investment. In fact, this has led nearly to the collapse of systematic process that can only give birth to a dismal and dilapidated condition. If you pay a casual visit to any of the public schools in Nigeria you will easily understand how far the standard of education has been deteriorated.

Public Education has Lost Public Faith

At the National Summit on Higher Education held in 2002, a hopelessly striking fact came in front that not only the curriculum existed in public educational institutions was substandard, but also of1,185 academic programmes, just 11% were given full NUC accreditation (NUC, 2001). Also, university system has only about 46% of staffs to what actually is required.

Shortage of Seats

There are about 23 private universities currently in Nigeria. But, seeing the demand for privately run education system this feels considerably less in number. Statistics shows that in the 2005-06 academic year, there were only 130,000 places for the 8000,000 candidates, thereby leaving many students deprived of the taste of higher education.(Source: bit.ly/1jQYf1t)

Parents Find Reliance on Private Education

Anyway, parents cannot give up their dreams to bring up their offspring with good education. And, to their expectations, private educational institutions have served a good deal. Privately run school and colleges are complementing the ills and lapses of public educational institutions. Private educational institutions have really grown prolific and gained huge popularity and acceptance among parents in Nigeria.

An important revelation with such move points out towards the fact that many Nigerian parents incur costly private education for the good of their children’s future. Instead of humble economic strength in average Nigerian parents, they can sacrifice all their comforts for the sake of their offspring. And, due to the inadequacy of good private universities in the country, many parents are sending their children abroad, against heavy toll on themselves.

Foreign Universities Offering Courses in Nigeria

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Though it is a noble step to invest all their savings for their children’s future, it is something that is not actually required anymore. Seeing the huge demand-supply gap in private universities, and average financial capacity among Nigerian population, many prestigious universities of the world, especially from the UK, have introduced their unparalleled standard of higher education to the Nigerian youth through online distance learning. Attending courses offered by these eminent universities, Nigerian students not only enrol on fully accredited curriculums that are accepted anywhere in the world, but also make an opportunity to carry out regular jobs alongside their study online, and all these against an unbelievably low cost. They do not have to leave their country, for with a computer and internet connection they are all set to continue their studies from their home or anywhere they prefer.

To overcome the sustaining problem of the shortage in the country’s own private universities, and continuously poor standard of public educational institutions, Nigerian students must take benefits of these inexpensive and career-centric higher education offered by some of the world’s best universities online.

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