Bridging the Competency Chasm: A Critical Review of Practical Skill Deficits in Nigerian Engineering Graduates

Abstract

This review looks critically at the unending dislocation adding to the gap between the academic preparation and the skill needs of the engineer graduates in Nigeria. Using the available literature, national structural evaluations and professional effectiveness reports, the project indicates disastrous weaknesses in the technical and practical potential of the graduates. All these inefficiencies are endorsed through high rates of structural failures that include frequent collapses of buildings and deteriorated roads construction, indicating the lack of capability of a substantial number of graduates to translate the theoretical knowledge into safe constructive responses related to engineering. Moreover, gaps in professional skills, such as technical proposal development, interpretation of engineering schematics, and contribution to academic research/ publications are revealed in the course of the review. The Supervised Industrial Training Scheme in Engineering (SITSE), which was another failed program before this one, only proves that there is a need to have a post-graduation work program which is sustainable and mandatory. To close the competency gap and improve the global competitiveness of the engineering workforce in Nigeria, this paper suggests an organized national structure that will focus on hands-on experience, tutoring and benchmarking against the world.