Nigeria, Duke Of Edinburgh Explore Education For Employment

Nigeria has engaged with the Duke of Edinburgh, His Royal Highness Prince Edward, to explore practical education models aimed at strengthening job readiness among young people through structured skills development and empowerment programmes.

The engagement was disclosed in a statement on Wednesday by Ikharo Attah, Special Adviser on Media and Communications to the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa.

According to the statement, the minister made the presentation during a plenary session moderated by Prince Edward at the ongoing Education World Forum (EWF) in London, United Kingdom.

Other panelists at the session included Ontario Minister of Education, Paul Calandra; Secretary of State for Education of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Raquel Teixeira; and International Youth Representative of the DofE International Award Foundation, Andrea Chakma.

The session focused on the role of non-formal education and soft skills in improving employability, while also examining how industry partnerships can enhance youth development and workforce readiness.

Dr. Alausa said Nigeria is implementing a range of non-formal education programmes targeting out-of-school children, adults, and vulnerable groups as part of efforts to bridge literacy gaps and improve access to vocational skills.

“What we are doing in Nigeria is because we have a lot of out-of-school children we have to find a way that we can quickly get them a kind of non-formal education,” he said.

“We have created a separate curriculum for them called accelerated basic education program which ties them to what they should be learning in school.”

He added that the government is expanding technical and vocational education as a practical pathway for skills acquisition and economic participation.

“We have heavily focused on technical vocational education, which is still a form of formal education but in a non-formal setting to give people that have gone to school other skill sets that they can use to benefit themselves, benefit their community,” he said.

Dr. Alausa further noted that most young Nigerians are still within the formal education system, stressing the need to integrate complementary skill-based learning to improve employability outcomes.

“Most of our youths are in schools and we as a government have to find a way to give them other forms of non-formal education while they are within the formal setting,” he added.

He said the Tinubu administration remains committed to expanding non-formal education initiatives as part of broader efforts to address unemployment, empower out-of-school children, and strengthen national human capital development.