Sunday Adebisi, a Professor of Entrepreneurship Hub-Innovation and Strategic Management, University of Lagos (UNILAG) has blamed the mentality of entitlement among the youth as a major reason behind the high rate of unemployment in the country.
Adebisi made the submission while delivering a lecture at the 2025 annual commemoration of the Black History Month, organised by the Institute of African and Diaspora Studies (IADS) of UNILAG on Wednesday in Lagos.
The lecture is with the theme: Role of Vocational Training Entrepreneurship and Organised Labour in Combatting Economic and Social Injustice in Nigeria.
The Black History Month is an annually observed commemorative month originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month.
According to him, there is the need to reorient the youth on why they must equip themselves with skills, to back up their academic qualifications, if they must remain relevant in the scheme of things, as well as be future ready.
Adebisi, also the Director, ARUA Centre of Excellence for Unemployment and Skills Development of the institution, said records has shown that there were only 15 per cent of youth enroll in vocational programs, due to societal biases favoring other academic education.
He cited underfunding, outdated curricula
societal stigma against ‘Blue Colar Job’, as well as the sub-optimal functionality of institutions like the
National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and Industrial Training Fund (ITF) that supposed to champion these trainings, as factors working against vocational and technical trainings.
“We must be able to let the youth stop thinking that once they are educated, it is their entitlement to be employed by the government, (which lives with us till date).
“Youth unemployment remains a critical issue, with millions unable to find decent jobs, owing to lack of vocational training.
“Before now, education of the youth was to enable them have high yields in agriculture, especially cash crops, to aid export of agriculutural produce to overseas.
“The present architect of Nigeria is largely influenced by how education came to us in 1515 to 1914 and the intention of the colonial masters in getting Africans and Nigerians educated.
“Education was to allow Nigerians to count, read and write, to support mainly, the administrative convenience of the colonial masters to breed interpreters, office attendant, clerical staff and craft-person. It was only meant for those who will finish and work for the government administration at all levels,”he said.
He stated that education remained a pillar that determines the discovery of a nation’s hidden wealth and treasures, outstanding innovation, productive economy, as well as secured and healthy society.
According to him, there is the need to embrace vocational education, as it is prepares people for a specific job or trade.
Explaining further, he said vocational education, also known as technical or career education, provides specialized training in a specific trade, technical field, or profession, expecting to get the participants ready for the place of work.
“Vocational education is a vital tool for enhancing employability and reducing poverty in Nigeria. It equips individuals with practical skills that align with current labour market needs.
“It also fosters self-reliance through skill acquisition and promotes entrepreneurship among graduates, enabling them to create jobs rather than solely seeking employment.
“Vocational education is a catalyst for economic diversification and development, when the required skills are available to support the industries that want to make investments,” he stated.
He, however, fingered the conversion of acquired skills into creating decent jobs for self sufficiency and wealth creation and mindset development that promotes entrepreneurial mindset during and after completion of vocational training, as some of the challenges facing the adoption of vocational education.
According to him, entrepreneurship mentoring for trainees to help them take lifelong decision as well as providing opportunity for the trainees to pitch the outputs of their skills for enterprise creation among others, is also an area to look into.
Speaking further, Prof Adebisi stated however that other challenges facing the country as a whole was that of economic injustice, which he described as the unfair distribution of economic resources, opportunities, and benefits thereby, resulting in unequal economic outcomes for individuals, groups or communities.
He further said that just like economic injustice, social injustice was also another area of concern.
“Social injustice refers to situations where individuals or groups are treated unfairly or discriminated against, based on their social characteristics such as: ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability and religion.
“Economic and social injustice are broad and multifaceted concepts that encompass issues such as economic inequality, poverty, discrimination, and exclusion.
“Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, faces stark economic and social injustices. With a GDP of $440.8 billion in 2023 and down to $390.02 in 2024, it struggles with a 33.3 per cent unemployment rate (Q4 2023), youth unemployment at 53.7 per cent and 40% living below the poverty line.
“Social injustices include gender inequality, ethnic discrimination, and limited access to education and healthcare,” he stated.
He added that over 133 million Nigerians—more than half the population, experience multidimensional poverty, lacking access to basic needs, such as food, healthcare and education.
According to him, the extreme inequality is largely built on inheritance, monopolies and unfair advantages, adding that the wealth gap is a moral and social crisis, with millions going hungry every day.
The don listed resource mismanagement and policy decisions that favoured the wealthy, insecurity, violence in some parts of the country, weak governance, high rate of poverty among others, as key drivers of economic and social injustice in the country.
Prof Adebisi then urged organised labour to wake up to their responsibilities by ensuring that they influence policy changes that would continually protect workers from unfair practices.
According to him, Labour must ensure that economic growth translates into improved living standards for all citizens and that collective bargaining power must be understood and deployed by united workers and labour organisations to enhance their bargaining power with employers, which is essential for negotiating better wages and benefits.
He then called for a collaboration between educational institutions, industries and government agencies, to work out means to align vocational training with market needs.
“Nigerian government should also strive to prioritize vocational education within its national policy framework, ensuring adequate funding and resources are allocated to VTE programs.
“Initiatives aimed at changing societal perceptions about vocational education can encourage more students to pursue these valuable skills, as well as providing access to finance, mentorship programs, and business incubators, to empower young Trainee entrepreneurs to succeed.
“Graduates of vocational trainees must be treated as professionals in their own right, with decent wages that will make it attractive to youth, among others,” he stated.
Earlier in his opening remark, the Acting Director of the institute, Prof. Ayo Yusuf said vocational and technical education remained the only way to tackle the high rate of unemployment among youth in the country.
The research professor of Linguistics and Language Engineering of the AIDS noted that there was the need for students to always explore means of utilizing their God given talents, aside whatever career choice they aspired to pursue while in school, to avoid relying on anyone, including government jobs.
“Today, we join the rest of the world in celebrating the Black History Month as an institute. We are celebrating our brothers and sisters in the diaspora, especially America, who have gone through the trauma and persecution of their host community.
“We are celebrating what they have gone through, so that we are able to tease out ways of empowering them or sooth their experience.
“So, every year, the institute participates in the Black History Month in its own way and so, since 2019, we have been coming up with activities, based on the main theme of the Black History Month itself. We will tease out a topic and address the issue.
“This year, what we have done after seeing the main theme; talking about African Americans and Labour, you find out that generally in Africa and Nigeria in particular, our focus has been on formal education, leaving aside, vocational and technical education.
“We have realised that the only way to address the idleness among our youth, is to let them know the importance of vocational and technical education so that they can easily set up and be on their own.
Therefore to drive this home, we invited eight secondary school across Lagos and a professor of Entrepreneurship to address them and that, I think we have achieved.
“We have been able to let them know that they do not need to go to university to study just anything, they must also consider their talents and we can see that in the exhibition as presented by one of the invited schools,” Prof. Yusuf stated.
The high point of the occasion was the presentation of plaques and cash prizes to winners of an essay writing competition.
The international School, University of Lagos carted home the first prize, followed by Yaba College of Technology Secondary School.
