“Don’t Train First and Ask Where the Jobs Are Afterwards”

 

“Don’t Train First and Ask Where the Jobs Are Afterwards”

At a time when Nigeria continues to grapple with youth unemployment, insecurity, and the difficult transition from education to meaningful employment, the relationship between skills, technology, and economic opportunity has become increasingly important.

In 2022, Aduratomi Etuk, then a postgraduate student of Technology Management at Obafemi Awolowo University, published a study examining “The Role of Technology Forecasting on Unemployment: A Panacea to Insecurity in North-Central Nigeria.” The research explored whether anticipating future technological and labour-market trends could help Nigeria prepare young people for emerging employment opportunities and, potentially, address some of the socioeconomic conditions associated with insecurity. Her research was subsequently published in the International Journal of New Technology Research.

Four years on, Etuk’s own career has taken an interesting turn. Her academic journey began with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, with a minor in Chemistry, before she moved into Technology Management and later pursued an MSc at the University of Alberta in Canada, where her research now focuses on immunology and biomedical science.

For OurNigeria News, she reflects on the research that began her journey into technology forecasting, what its findings tell us about Nigerian youth, the limits of the study, and why she believes Nigeria must build an economy capable of turning knowledge into innovation, industries, and jobs.

READ ALSO: JOB CREATION AS A SECURITY STRATEGY

OurNigeria: Your paper makes a strong connection between unemployment and insecurity. What prompted you to investigate this relationship, particularly in North-Central Nigeria?

Aduratomi Etuk: At the time I conducted the research, unemployment and insecurity were two issues that were very visible in Nigeria, particularly in the northern and North-Central regions. What interested me was that they were often discussed as separate problems. We talked about insecurity as a security problem and unemployment as an economic problem.

I wanted to explore whether there was a connection between the two and, more importantly, whether addressing unemployment could form part of a longer-term approach to reducing insecurity.

North-Central Nigeria was particularly relevant because of the security challenges occurring in the region, while Abuja was selected as the case study largely because of practical considerations around access, cost, and safety.

OurNigeria: The title describes technology forecasting as a “panacea to insecurity.” What exactly do you mean by technology forecasting, and how can an ordinary young Nigerian benefit from it?

Aduratomi Etuk: Technology forecasting is essentially looking at the direction in which technology, industries, and the economy are moving and using that information to anticipate the skills and jobs that are likely to be needed in the future.

For a young Nigerian, the practical benefit is quite simple. Instead of spending years acquiring a qualification and then discovering that there is very little demand for that particular skill set, we can use labour-market and technology trends to identify where opportunities are emerging and begin preparing people for them early.

When I used the word “panacea,” I was not suggesting that technology forecasting alone would magically solve insecurity. The argument was that it could become one tool for tackling an important underlying economic vulnerability.

If we can anticipate employment opportunities, train young people appropriately, and improve their chances of productive employment, we potentially remove one of the socioeconomic conditions associated with insecurity.

OurNigeria: Your study found that 98.3 percent of respondents were interested in specialised training for future employment opportunities. What does this tell you about the kind of intervention young Nigerians are actually looking for? Does this have any correlation with the recent changes to the NYSC and the introduction of 11 focus areas?

Aduratomi Etuk: For me, that was one of the most interesting findings in the study. Ninety-eight point three percent is an overwhelming majority. It suggests that the young people we surveyed were not simply waiting for jobs to appear. They were willing to acquire additional, specialised skills if they believed those skills would improve their employment prospects.

I think that distinction is important. The intervention young Nigerians need is not simply “more education.” It is education and training that are deliberately connected to opportunities in the labour market.

That is why I find the recent direction of the NYSC particularly interesting. The move towards defined focus areas for skills and employability reflects a similar principle: we need to be much more intentional about connecting young people’s training to economic opportunities.

I would not claim that my research caused or directly predicted the NYSC changes, or that there is a statistical correlation between the two. However, I do think the direction of those reforms is consistent with the argument we made in 2022.

Four years later, we are still asking essentially the same question: how do we ensure that young Nigerians leave education not only with qualifications but also with skills that the economy can actually absorb?

OurNigeria: Interestingly, 70 percent of your respondents already had bachelor’s degrees, yet they were unemployed. Does this suggest that Nigeria’s problem is not simply a lack of education but a mismatch between education and available jobs?

Aduratomi Etuk: Absolutely, and I think that was one of the findings that should make us think seriously about how we define education and employability. Seventy percent of the unemployed respondents in our sample had bachelor’s degrees. That tells us that simply increasing access to university education cannot, by itself, solve unemployment.

There is a difference between being educated and having skills that are currently in demand in the labour market. We need to ask whether our educational system is producing the competencies that emerging industries require, whether graduates know where opportunities are developing, and whether the economy itself is creating enough productive jobs.

So I would describe it as both a skills-alignment problem and a job-creation problem.

We cannot put the entire responsibility on universities or graduates. Even a highly skilled population needs an economy capable of absorbing those skills.

OurNigeria: You recommend specialised academies and skills centres instead of relying exclusively on traditional four-year university education. What kinds of jobs or skills do you believe Nigeria should be preparing young people for now?

Aduratomi Etuk: I think the most important point is that we shouldn’t create a fixed list today and assume it will still be relevant ten years from now. That would actually defeat the purpose of technology forecasting.

The system should continuously identify where demand is emerging and then adapt training accordingly.

Today, that could include areas such as digital technology, data and AI, cybersecurity, renewable energy, advanced agriculture and food processing, healthcare technology, logistics, technical trades, and other areas where Nigeria has both domestic needs and opportunities to participate in the global economy.

But I also think we sometimes make the mistake of equating the future of work exclusively with high technology. Nigeria still needs electricians, technicians, healthcare workers, agricultural specialists, skilled tradespeople, and other professionals whose work is essential to a functioning economy.

The principle I would retain from the paper is simple: ‘Don’t train first and ask where the jobs are afterwards. Identify where demand is going and build training pathways around it.’

OurNigeria: Your research acknowledges that the secondary data showed a relationship between unemployment and insecurity, but the primary data from Abuja did not effectively establish that relationship. How should readers therefore interpret your central argument?

Aduratomi Etuk: I think readers should interpret the conclusion with the appropriate level of caution. The secondary evidence we examined supported an association between unemployment and crime or insecurity. However, our primary survey in Abuja did not independently establish that relationship.

What the primary data demonstrated much more clearly was the willingness of unemployed young people to participate in specialised training for future employment opportunities.

So if I were stating the conclusion today, I would be more precise. I would say the research supports specialised, forward-looking skills development as a potential unemployment intervention, while existing evidence suggests that reducing unemployment may also contribute to addressing some of the socioeconomic drivers associated with insecurity.

I would not say that unemployment is the sole cause of insecurity, because it clearly isn’t. Insecurity is multidimensional. And I would not claim that our Abuja survey proved causation. That would go beyond what the data showed.

I think acknowledging that limitation is important. It tells us what the study established and, equally importantly, what still needs to be investigated.

OurNigeria: Aduratomi, what personally led you into this research? Was there a particular experience, observation, or encounter with unemployment or insecurity that made you want to investigate the issue?

Aduratomi Etuk: What initially caught my attention was the contradiction I was seeing around me. Nigeria had a very large young and increasingly educated population, yet unemployment remained extremely high. At the same time, insecurity was becoming an increasingly visible part of everyday national life.

I became interested in whether we were looking at these problems too independently. Rather than asking only how we respond to insecurity after it occurs, I wanted to think about some of the underlying socioeconomic conditions that might make people more vulnerable to crime, violence, or recruitment into criminal activity.

My background at the time was in Technology Management, so that led me to another question: could we become better at anticipating where employment opportunities were going to emerge and prepare young people for those opportunities before the demand arrived?

That intersection between technology, employment, and national development became the basis of the research.

OurNigeria: Looking back at the research four years after its publication, what has changed? Do you still believe the recommendations are relevant to Nigeria’s security and employment challenges today?

Aduratomi Etuk: Yes, I do. In fact, I think the central recommendation is even more relevant today, although I would frame parts of the argument differently.

Technology has moved extraordinarily quickly. AI alone has changed conversations about which tasks can be automated, which skills are becoming more valuable, and what employment may look like in the next decade.

That makes it even less sustainable to design education and workforce-development programmes based only on what the labour market looked like five or ten years ago.

At the same time, Nigeria continues to face significant challenges around youth employment and insecurity. So I still believe strongly in building shorter, specialised and adaptable training pathways around emerging opportunities.

What I would emphasise more today is that forecasting cannot stop at predicting jobs. There has to be a feedback loop between government, educational institutions, and industry.

We need to identify emerging demand, train people, measure whether graduates actually obtain employment, and then continuously adjust the programmes based on the results.

Interestingly, the original paper already recommended measuring how many graduates of these specialised programmes actually become employed and how quickly they find employment. I think that kind of outcome-based approach is even more important today.

OurNigeria: If the Nigerian Government gave you the opportunity to implement just one recommendation from your research tomorrow, what would you prioritise and why? I

Aduratomi Etuk: I would establish a national labour-market and technology forecasting programme that directly feeds into skills training. I would not start by building hundreds of new centres. First, I would build the intelligence system that tells us what those centres should actually be teaching.

Bring government, industry, universities, technical institutions, and technology experts together to identify where demand is likely to grow over the next three, five, and ten years. Then use existing universities, polytechnics, NYSC structures, and vocational centres to deliver short, recognised training programmes aligned with those opportunities.

Most importantly, I would measure outcomes. If we train 10,000 young people in a particular area, how many are employed six months later? What are they earning? Are employers actually demanding those skills?

That creates a system that learns and adapts rather than another skills programme that trains people without knowing whether there is a market waiting for them.

OurNigeria: Finally, beyond this particular research, what should we know about you as a researcher? What kind of problem are you hoping your work will help Nigeria solve?

Aduratomi Etuk: My research journey has evolved considerably since this paper. My academic background began in Biology and Chemistry. I subsequently studied Technology Management, which produced this research, and my work today is much more deeply rooted in biological and biomedical research.

Those areas may look very different, but there is a common thread for me: I am interested in research that ultimately solves real problems.

This particular study asked how we could use evidence and foresight to better prepare young Nigerians for economic opportunities. My current scientific research asks very different questions, but I still care deeply about how knowledge translates into impact.

For Nigeria specifically, I would like to see us become a country that doesn’t simply consume knowledge and technology developed elsewhere but produces research, develops technology, builds scientific capacity, and translates those discoveries into solutions, industries, and opportunities of our own.

So I don’t see Nigeria’s employment challenge and its scientific-development challenge as entirely separate. Building a stronger research and innovation ecosystem can itself create new industries, new expertise, and new categories of employment. That is one of the transformations I would like to contribute to over the course of my career.