Plagued by a recurrent unemployment nightmare, graduates of Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions now see Information and Communications Technology, (ICT) as an escape route from the bizarre situation. Curiously but understandly so the institutions managements now serve as props for these graduates.
But while many graduates see going abroad in search of more proverbial golden fleece, as an escape route, others say they will stay here and salvage their fortunes through the adoption of ICT.
Indeed,experts are of the opinion that in a country where seven out of 10 graduates are on the unemployment queue for non existent jobs, going the extra mile to get certification should not be out of place. And this is mainly due to the lack of relevant industry required skills-set by majority of the graduates.
This was what prompted former Minister of Education, Dr. Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili to declare during the launch of Education Reform Agenda last year October that if the university curricular are not overhauled with a view to putting emphasis on ICT certification vis-a-vis the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills by students '— by 2020 we may have a significant population of highly skilled trained criminals in our society…'
The hopes, expectations and aspirations of most parents on their children always lead to frustration, disillusionment and disappointments soon after graduation when such graduate children search for elusive jobs-some for up to ten years– without luck, she reasoned.
However, in the recent past there has been an increased craze by the Nigerian university undergraduates to acquire ICT and e-Business professional Certifications with a view to improving their chances in the labour market.
What are the critical success factors with regards to ICT certification? Does certification help in getting jobs? Does it help those, who migrate abroad in integration? Does ICT certification bring more money to the Certificants? Do ICT certifications help the none-IT graduates in job mobility? Who needs certification? And what certifications are the employers looking for in Nigeria today? For those, who want to migrate to Europe and the U.S. what certifications are in hot demand in those countries? What is the relationship between certification and professional skills? Is it possible to have ICT certification without having the relevant professional practical skills? What are the benefits to the University community? Can the universities go it all alone without having an IT Technical partner? What's the most cost-effective way to implement this programme? How are the IT vendors rated today in the world?
To find answers to these questions visit CertMag (www.certmag.com), the number one certification magazine in the world. The opinion is that ICT certification plays a major role in determining the salary level of an applicant and his chances of getting employed.
However, the magazine explains that ICT certification without practical skills gained from hands-on training is counterproductive. In a word, the employers are not looking for just anyone with four or five certifications, who cannot solve problems. The employers are interested in people, who have deep and practical skills to solve organisational problems. This makes students, who just memorised, dumps and passed examinations to look like quacks and unemployable.
To exploit the benefits of ICT certification, graduates need hands-on coaching where practical skill will be transferred to the students from certified and experienced instructors in a dedicated, well-equipped ICT laboratory,experts reasoned.
With regards to salary and emoluments, ICT certified graduates earn 50 per cent more than their colleagues without certification. According to (www.monster.com), (one of the world leading employment bureau), those who are security Information experts with certifications in Certified Ethical Hacking (CEH) and Certified Forensic Investigator(CHFI) earn up to $150,000.00 yearly (about N20 million).
And when it comes to job mobility, it has been discovered those ICT experts, who get promoted to positions of Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer are staff with certifications in the following areas: ITIL, ITSM, PMP, e-business design and implementation, and PRINCE2. This means that ordinary university degree is not sufficient to get to the top in blue chip companies especially, in IT related jobs. Interestingly, the more the certifications the more versatile an employee becomes and the more respect and authority he commands.
The International Data Corporation (www.idc.com) said recently that there are 140,000 soft ware applications required to support the wireless telephony technology (a $350 billion market per annum) in the next four years. The global outsourcing market is also estimated to be about $350 billion worth.
This further confirms that the biggest opportunity today in terms of getting job and getting robust salary and getting to the top is through ICT professional skills whether in Nigeria or abroad. Little wonder why countries like Singapore, Cost Rica (the new Digital Republic), Sweden, and China make ICT to be an integral part of their universities curricula regardless of an undergraduate' field of study.
On the global rating of IT training vendors, the top 10 IT training vendors in the world according to International Data Corporation (www.idc.com) are New Horizons, which has remained no1 for the past ten years. The second and third biggest respectively are IBM and Oracle. Trailing behind as number five, six, seven, eight and ninth positions respectively are: SAP, Sun Microsystems, Global Knowledge, NETg, Smart Force, Learning Tree, and the tenth is Knowledge Pool.
Choosing a vendor, which is strong internationally and locally is a sine qua non for a successful implementation of ICT certification programme in the universities so that the right skills will be transferred to the students. This is because IT is universal and the bigger the international network of a vendor the more robust the vendor package will likely be and the more opportunity for students when they migrate abroad.
It is also discovered that vendors, which focus on training only do better in delivery and depth than vendors that combine sales of software and hardware with training: The law of focus. In Nigeria as at today, our research shows that only New Horizons, which operates in 60 countries of the world has been very visible in the Nigerian universities among the top 10 IT training vendors globally. And of the top ten, it is the only one that is independent and vendor-neutral. Most of the other vendors on the league table of the top ten are vendor-specific, they cannot deliver training outside of their software. And undergraduates need versatile skills at the early stage of their career to enable them move up the ladder faster not specific skills.
The more versatile an ICT expert is the more money he receives for his skills and vise-versa. Meanwhile, in Nigeria there are other local players in the IT training business like KarRox, APTECH, and NIIT. These are all Asian companies and their names do not feature on the International Data Corporation (IDC) league table of the top ten best global IT training vendors, which is our focus in this research.
Our research also reveals that e-Commerce and e-Business professional courses will be the sure antidote for undergraduates in the faculties of Arts, Social Sciences and other non-IT disciplines. What is in hot demand today in the labour market are skills in CEH, CHFI, CRM and also courses like MBA, e-Business and Master of Security Science (MSS)
Benefits of this programme to the university community are enormous. For instance a technology- driven university like MIT in the U.S. does not depend on external software vendors to develop its required software. They use their students to develop software and do things like networking and other IT-related projects.
The university does not only save money in buying software it also commercialises some of its student's software projects. This was how the GOOGLE search engine came into existence. It was the final year project of Larry Page and Serge Brin.
On the issue of if Nigerian universities can go it all alone without a technical partner.
It is discovered that because of the dynamic nature of IT training content and courseware where the life span of a courseware can be as brief as six months, it becomes almost impossible for any institution in Nigeria to go it all alone without a strategic alliance and collaboration with international companies which have access to latest content all the time.
ICT changes too soon and too frequently so it cannot be taught the way universities teach Mathematics or any other Science course, whose content remains the same for ages. This explains why all over the world, universities collaborate with training vendor with a rich product portfolio where they can get all their ICT training needs.
What is the situation like in the Nigerian market today? A quick review of the vacancy pages on our national Dailies shows that 75 per cent of the jobs being advertised require applicants to have sound ICT skills, and not just ability to browse internet or send e-mail.Indeed, roughly 66% of the vacancies are ICT- related jobs. Just recently, ICAN came up with a policy of IT for all chartered accountants. For graduates without ICT certification the labour market is very hot, frustrating and can be killing. This is why smart graduates of Social-Sciences, Law, and even other sciences like Pharmacy are taking to ICT certification to boost their chances in the labour market.
According to Mr. Seyi Amosun, a graduate of Psychology from University of Ibadan, who is now ICT experts and earn salaries in 7 digits just two years after graduation: 'I wonder what would have become of my life without ICT certifications. Each time I come across my classmates many of them, who are still roaming the streets two years after graduation, it occurs to me that the Holy Book is right when it says; 'people perish for lack of information'.
'With the right information and the right skills every Nigerian graduate should be able to be gainfully employed if not here in Nigeria but outside of this country' according to Ms Duruji, another Social-Science graduate now an IT-consultant.
Another area where certification is helping out the smart Nigerian graduates is in the area of the UK-sponsored Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and the Green Card GC of the U.S.A. We discover that individuals with ICT certification skills stand a better chance of getting employment as compared to their counterparts without ICT certifications. Even students, who go abroad for post-graduates studies and who have certifications easily get good jobs to sponsor their education unlike those without certification, who engage in menial jobs.
When The Guardian visited some universities, which had integrated ICT certifications training into the university academic curricula the response from students was the same everywhere from Covenant University to Crawford, to Babcock, among others. The students all believe that the integration of ICT certification training into the university curricula was the best thing that has happened to the university educational system in the recent past.
According to Mr.Edward Onyeaku, a fresh graduate of Babcock University: 'I thank my star, I have 3 ICT certification today and 3 letters of employment in my pocket within 3 months after graduation. I thank the management of my universty for parnering with New Horizons, the world no1 IT training firm, which gave us access to first class training content and practical/hands-on experience at the lowest price possible with experience and versatile instructors.
ICT certification is definitely the key to cracking the unemployment code. 'I am a good witness'. A part five student of Faculty of Technology of Convenant University, Timi Soyele, also feels fulfilled that even before graduation he has gotten employment letter as Information Security Consultant as a result of two International Certifications he has obtained in Certified Ethical Hacker and Certified Hacking Forensic Investigation from New Horizons.
As to the question of what is the right certification for the Nigerian graduates. The industry determines, which skills sell most. Our research shows that as at today the following are the top 12 ICT/ e-Business certifications that are being sought for in the labour market: Oracle10g, JAVA, MCSE, ITIL, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Forensic Investigator (CHFI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Knowledge Management (KM) and Project Management (PMP) and e-business Security.
The reason for this is not strange. The most thriving sectors of the economy are the Telecom, Financial and Oil and Gas.
According to the Human Resource managers in those sectors, the e-Business and information security skills are in hot demand today because cutting edge technology has become a competitive advantage in business locally and globally and Nigeria has a big shortfall with regards to the supply of e-business Consultants and Information Security experts.
From statistics made available to The Guardian by the Employment and Recruitment Agencies, we have less than 500 qualified Information Security Experts in Nigeria. And also, we have less than 10 per cent of e-Business Consultants required to manage the e-business arm of the blue chips companies like the banks, telecoms and oil and gas and even manufacturing, where jobs like Logistic manager, Supply Chain manager, Planning manager, Customer Relationship manger, Project manager, Business analyst, Business Process analyst, and Business Intelligence abound but not enough people with the right skills-set to occupy them.
On the whole, ICT skill is where the eyeball is in today's labour market. The Nigerian university undergraduate, who do not want his or her shoe to wear-off in the labour market will need more than ordinary university degree to beat the unemployment epidemic.
According to one senior consultant in a top employment bureau in Lagos, 'it is as certain as night begets day that any graduate with the right ICT certifications in Information Security or Knowledge Management or Customer Relationship Management or any of those e-business high-end certification courses regardless of the graduate's discipline cannot be unemployed in Nigeria.'
By Sonny Aragba-Akpore
The Guardian
Sunday, October 14, 2007
