Nigeria is repositioning its education and skills system to produce trained, certified and adaptable workers capable of competing for jobs in the global outsourcing and digitally enabled services market.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this at the “Hire From Nigeria” side event on the margins of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Alausa said the Federal Government was aligning education and skills development with international labour-market demand to expand opportunities for Nigerian youths.
According to a statement by the Minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, Alausa said the ministry was positioning education as the supply engine of the national talent-export agenda by building a talent pipeline directly linked to global employment opportunities.
“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,” the minister said.
He said Nigeria’s youthful population, English-language advantage, cultural adaptability and growing digital capabilities provided a strong foundation for participation in the global outsourcing and digitally enabled services economy.
Alausa said the sector could create jobs, increase export earnings and enable Nigerians to build globally sourced careers without leaving the country, but stressed that skills, quality and reliability would determine the country’s competitiveness.
He identified the disconnect between training and evolving employer requirements, limited work-based learning and inadequate access to internationally recognised certification as key challenges requiring urgent attention.
To address the gaps, the ministry, he said, was pursuing curriculum reform, stronger accreditation and quality assurance, alongside expanded digital and technical training through federal institutions and credible private providers.
“We need a permanent employer-led feedback loop, not occasional curriculum reviews,” Alausa said, urging employers to participate in programme design, training, assessment, certification and recruitment.
He said the government was also working to reposition technical and vocational education as a direct pathway to income, enterprise and global employment opportunities.
Alausa disclosed that the Federal Government’s free TVET programme had attracted more than one million applications, with 160,000 trainees supported through about 1,200 centres nationwide, including Federal Technical Colleges and accredited private training centres.
He said the government was promoting multiple pathways to employment and enterprise, including university education, technical and vocational education, apprenticeships and continuous upskilling.
The minister said preparing young Nigerians for an economy increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and advanced technologies remained a priority.
“We must train young people to work with artificial intelligence, not to compete with it on routine tasks,” he said.
He said the focus was increasingly on technology-complementary skills, including judgement, creativity, domain knowledge, data literacy, cybersecurity, cloud services, software development, customer success, quality assurance and AI-enabled operations.
Through the Digital Training Academy, the government 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 such as product management, cloud computing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning, financial technology, quantum computing and natural language processing.
Alausa also said the Student Venture Capital Grant was supporting students in STEMM disciplines to turn innovative ideas into viable businesses, strengthening the link between education, innovation and enterprise.
He urged international employers, business process outsourcing operators, investors and development partners to move beyond expressions of interest and invest in practical partnerships and talent pipelines.
The minister called on employers to define their skills requirements, co-design training programmes, provide work-based learning, recognise credible Nigerian certifications and recruit from Nigerian talent pools.
He said BPO operators and investors should expand delivery centres beyond Nigeria’s major commercial cities while supporting training infrastructure, connectivity, quality systems and management capacity.
The initiatives form part of the ministry’s role on the supply side of the National Talent Export Programme, which targets one million export-linked jobs and 10 million globally certified Nigerians by 2030.
Alausa said the ministry would continue to align education reforms with President Bola 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.
