The jobs that will be available in 2020 for our university graduates are not what they are being prepared for right now

The World Economic Forum projects that the jobs that will be available in the future will border around disruptive technologies of the present or the future

It’s no news, our education systems have failed us. Not just in the kinds of courses we have been given to choose from over the years but also in the quality of content and delivery over time.

Another JAMB exams have gone and as usual, Medicine and Surgery, Engineering and ‘easy’ science courses like Microbiology and Biochemistry dominate the course lists. Banking and Finance, Mass Communication, Theatre Arts e.t.c. are all very, all too common choices that we inadvertently feed our young.

Under school systems where nothing much else is taught apart from what the curriculum says, it is no wonder that our universities keep churning our university graduates who do not fit the desired employees of their potential employers sometimes by no fault of theirs.

Your Medicine and Surgery degree may not be necessary in the future with constant improvements and precision in the use of bots and penetrative technologies even for delicate brain surgeries.

According to the World Economic Forum, here are five job areas that will be relevant by 2020.

  1. Data Analysts: According to the survey conducted by questioning executives from more than 350 employers across nine industries in 15 of the world’s largest economies, more companies will need to make sense of all the data currently and potentially made available by technological disruptiveness.
  2. Jobs around computers and mathematical operations will be on the increase. This will include software development, internet security, app developers and so on. In other words, employers are going to be more in need of staff who are heading with the world into smaller digital spaces.
  3. Mobile and online advertising: It will be increasingly more difficult to sell online given the heavy presence of content that consumers are bombarded with daily. Companies will be in need of specialised marketers who can get through all the clutter online and reach their target consumers.
  4. Human resource personnel: This is so important for companies who want to grow not just a business but a brand that outlives its founders. And that is only made possible with the right team. Persons who have the uncanny ability to stir people right through the many phases of a business is a very valuable addition to any company.
  5. The need for creatives will be on the increase. According to the World Economic Forum, while a lot of monotonous jobs can be automated, creative jobs still require a human. Demand for product designers for automobiles, electronics, and other manufactured goods will be on the increase.
    How many of our universities are prepared to tutor students along these lines? Very few indeed.

Our curriculum change cannot border on making History disappear, a grave error, as fas I know or merging CRK into IRK, a meaningless alteration that has no long term benefit.

Our curriculums need to be reversed or expanded to include more. Mass Communication needs to be replaced with Digital Journalism. Medicine and Surgery undergraduates need a full year or more of technological advancements in science and medicine. Marketing needs to be replaced with Social Media/Online Marketing, Engineering with Software Development/App Development.

The world is marching far ahead, and so are the multinationals present in Nigeria and Africa. Why aren’t we preparing students for the jobs that will be available in the future? The ones we say are not available?

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