Alausa Champions Global Jobs for Nigerian Talents at UNGA 81 By Beauty Akporido Aroh
The Federal Government has begun a major push to reposition Nigeria’s education and skills development system as a direct pipeline for global employment, with the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, declaring that the country must produce trained, certified and adaptable talent capable of competing in the international digital economy.
Alausa made the declaration at the “Hire From Nigeria” side event held in New York on the margins of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, where he outlined the Federal Ministry of Education’s role in supplying the skilled workforce required to drive Nigeria’s emerging talent-export agenda.
The New York engagement formed part of the Federal Government’s broader Hire From Nigeria campaign, launched in Abuja in August to connect Nigerian professionals, skilled workers, digital experts, creatives and service providers with international employers and clients.
Speaking on Nigeria’s prospects in the global outsourcing and digitally enabled services market, Alausa said the country’s youthful population, English-language advantage, cultural adaptability and expanding digital capabilities provide a foundation for greater participation in the global economy.
“Nigeria’s greatest asset is its people: a young, ambitious, English-speaking and increasingly digitally capable population. Our task in Education is to turn that scale into verified competence and reliable service delivery,” he said.
The Minister said the opportunity presented by the global services economy could generate employment, increase export earnings and enable Nigerians to build internationally sourced careers while remaining in the country.
He, however, identified the mismatch between conventional training and rapidly changing employer requirements, limited opportunities for work-based learning and inadequate access to internationally recognised certifications as some of the challenges that must be overcome.
According to him, the Federal Ministry of Education is responding through curriculum reform, stronger accreditation and quality assurance, alongside expanded digital and technical training through federal institutions and credible private-sector training providers.
Alausa stressed that the relationship between education institutions and employers must become continuous, rather than relying on occasional curriculum reviews.
“We need a permanent employer-led feedback loop, not occasional curriculum reviews,” he said, insisting that employers should participate in the process from programme design through training, assessment, certification and eventual recruitment.
The Minister also said the government was working to change the perception of technical and vocational education by positioning skills acquisition as a pathway to employment, enterprise development and participation in the global economy.
He disclosed that the Federal Government’s free Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme had attracted more than one million applications, with about 160,000 trainees supported through approximately 1,200 centres nationwide, including Federal Technical Colleges and accredited private training centres.
The government, he said, was equally promoting multiple routes into employment and enterprise, including university education, TVET, apprenticeships and continuous professional upskilling.
The Minister said each of the pathways should provide opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship and further learning, particularly as technology continues to transform the nature of work.
On artificial intelligence, Alausa said Nigeria’s education system must prepare young people to work alongside emerging technologies rather than compete with machines in routine tasks.
“We must train young people to work with artificial intelligence, not to compete with it on routine tasks,” he said.
He listed judgement, creativity, domain knowledge, data literacy, cybersecurity, cloud services, software development, customer success, quality assurance and AI-enabled operations among the skills that would become increasingly important in the evolving labour market.
The Federal Government, through its Digital Training Academy, is partnering with global learning providers including Coursera and Pluralsight to provide 32,000 Nigerians with free access to professional digital and technology training.
The training covers areas including product management, cloud computing, cybersecurity, information technology automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, agentic AI, financial technology, parallel computing, quantum computing and natural language processing.
Alausa also highlighted the Student Venture Capital Grant as part of efforts to help students in STEMM disciplines transform innovative ideas into viable businesses and strengthen the relationship between education, innovation and enterprise.
He said the rapid pace of technological change also meant that education could no longer be viewed as something completed only during the early years of life.
Rather, Nigerians must be equipped to continually learn, unlearn and retrain as their careers evolve.
The Minister consequently called on international employers, Business Process Outsourcing operators, investors and development partners to move beyond expressions of interest and establish practical partnerships capable of producing sustainable talent pipelines.
He urged employers to clearly define their workforce requirements, participate in the design of training programmes, provide work-based learning opportunities, recognise credible Nigerian certifications, recruit from Nigerian talent pools and provide feedback on employee performance.
BPO operators and investors, he added, should consider expanding delivery centres beyond Nigeria’s largest commercial cities while supporting training infrastructure, connectivity, quality systems and management capacity.
Development partners, according to him, can contribute through scalable certification programmes, instructor development, inclusion of women and underserved communities, labour-market intelligence and systems that measure employment outcomes rather than merely counting the number of people trained.
He also called for international institutional partnerships and centres of excellence in Nigerian institutions to strengthen global linkages, benchmarking and knowledge transfer.
In return, Alausa said the Ministry of Education would deepen industry participation in curriculum development and certification, expand market-relevant TVET and digital-skills pathways, strengthen accreditation and quality assurance, and improve connections between educational institutions, training providers and employers.
The initiatives form part of the Ministry’s responsibilities on the supply side of the National Talent Export Programme (NATEP), which supports the Federal Government’s ambition of creating one million export-linked jobs and 10 million globally certified Nigerians by 2030.
The Ministry is also leading the Supply Technical Working Group under the programme.
The “Hire From Nigeria” campaign is a public-private initiative involving the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment through NATEP, the Ministries of Education, Information and National Orientation, Labour and Employment and Foreign Affairs, as well as private-sector and development partners. The campaign’s UNGA engagement was designed to connect Nigerian talent and technology-enabled services with international employers, investors and partners.
Alausa said the education reforms were aligned with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly its focus on human capital development, job creation, skills acquisition and inclusive economic growth.
“Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, our commitment is clear: we will continue to invest in the skills, knowledge and innovation of our young people and build an education system that gives Nigerian talent the capacity and confidence to compete and succeed anywhere in the world,” he said.
The Minister maintained that the ultimate objective was to build an education and skills ecosystem capable of connecting Nigerian talent with opportunity, strengthening the country’s participation in the global economy and enabling more young Nigerians to develop sustainable careers both at home and internationally.
