The Federal Government is seeking to overhaul Nigeria’s skills development system to connect trained workers directly with international employment opportunities, as it targets 10 million globally certified Nigerians by 2030.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this at the Hire From Nigeria side event held on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The initiative is part of the National Talent Export Programme, which also targets one million export-linked jobs by 2030. The Federal Government launched the Hire From Nigeria campaign in August to connect Nigerian professionals, skilled workers, digital experts, creatives and service providers with international employers and clients.
Alausa said the education and skills system was being repositioned to produce trained, certified and adaptable workers capable of meeting the demands of the global outsourcing and digitally enabled services market.
He identified the gap between training and changing employer requirements, inadequate work-based learning and limited access to internationally recognised certifications as some of the challenges the government was seeking to address.
The minister said the reforms included curriculum changes, stronger accreditation and quality assurance, and expanded digital and technical training through federal institutions and accredited private providers.
He said employers would be expected to play a permanent role in shaping the skills pipeline, from programme design and training to assessment, certification and recruitment.
The approach is intended to ensure that graduates acquire skills that correspond directly with labour-market demands rather than relying solely on periodic curriculum reviews.
Alausa also 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 already supported through approximately 1,200 centres nationwide.
The centres include Federal Technical Colleges and accredited private training institutions.
He said the government was promoting multiple pathways into employment and enterprise through university education, TVET, apprenticeships and continuous upskilling.
The minister said the goal was to reposition skills acquisition as a route to employment, entrepreneurship, income generation and further learning while changing perceptions about technical and vocational education.
“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.
Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies also feature prominently in the reforms, with the government seeking to equip young Nigerians with skills that complement rather than compete with automation.
Alausa identified judgment, creativity, domain knowledge, data literacy, cybersecurity, cloud services, software development, customer success, quality assurance and AI-enabled operations among the skills required by future workers.
Through the Federal Government’s Digital Training Academy, partnerships with global learning providers, including Coursera and Pluralsight, are providing Nigerians with access to professional digital and technology training.
The programme is targeting 32,000 beneficiaries and covers product management, cloud computing, cybersecurity, IT automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, agentic AI, fintech, parallel and quantum computing, and natural language processing. ( Federal Ministry of Info )
The government has also introduced the Student Venture Capital Grant to help students in STEMM disciplines turn innovative ideas into businesses, strengthening the connection between education, innovation and enterprise.
Alausa urged international employers, Business Process Outsourcing operators, investors and development partners to establish practical talent pipelines in Nigeria.
He called on employers to define their skills requirements, co-design training programmes, provide work-based learning opportunities, recognise credible Nigerian certifications, recruit from Nigerian talent pools and provide feedback on workforce performance.
He also urged BPO operators and investors to expand delivery centres beyond Nigeria’s major commercial cities while investing in training infrastructure, connectivity, quality systems and management capacity.
Development partners, he said, could support the programme through scalable certification schemes, instructor development, inclusion of women and underserved communities, labour-market intelligence and systems for measuring employment outcomes.
The minister further called for stronger international partnerships and centres of excellence in Nigerian institutions to deepen global linkages, benchmarking and knowledge transfer.
The Federal Ministry of Education is leading the supply-side technical working group of the National Talent Export Programme and is expected to deepen industry participation in curriculum development and certification.
It will also expand market-relevant TVET and digital-skills pathways, strengthen accreditation and quality assurance, and improve links between educational institutions, training providers and employers.
The initiatives form part of the government’s broader plan to create one million export-linked jobs and produce 10 million globally certified Nigerians by 2030.
The Federal Government says the programme is designed to connect Nigerian talent with global opportunities while enabling more Nigerians to build sustainable careers and deliver services internationally without necessarily leaving the country.
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