First Class degree, yet no job

 In the old days, students wanted to graduate as the best in their classes and because of this read well. They did this because of the juicy package that comes with making a first class or being a veledictorian. 

This is no more the same as many graduates not excepting the first class graduates now leave school for years without a job.

In his report, Medinat Kanabe speaks to first class graduates and school authorities on this.

Mariam Adamson’s story is pathetic. Born in 1988, her education was very fast because she was given double promotions in her primary and secondary schools because of her uncommon intelligence.

She soon got admission at 16 to study Agriculture in Moore Plantation, Ibadan where she graduated with Upper Credit and moved to Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) to study Animal Nutrition in 2008.

Her intelligence came to play when she wrote her first examination in FUNAAB and her name was posted on the school notice board as wanted for malpractice due to her performance.

She was made by the school authority to defend her written examination which she did without much effort.

Again she got a standing ovation from her supervising and external professors on the day she defended her final project.

Mariam Adamson, as expected soon graduated from the university with a first class in 2011 but until now, she is at home applying for jobs, attending interviews without any success.

She expressed her disappointment at the University for not treating her specially.

According to her, “I decided to do a Masters programme when the university did not offer me anything but the tenure of the then new Vice Chancellor, Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole saw to an increase in school fees which I couldn’t afford. I had to defile my Masters Programme when again I wasn’t offered the opportunity to continue.”

Asked what she has been doing since then, she said: “I have been applying for every job offer online but none of them called. These four years has been really bad, sitting at home, applying, waiting, hoping, it has being terrible.”

She said it is frustrating not being able to do what she practised after four years. “I graduated at a very young age with first class. I was respected by my classmates and lecturers but it didn’t take me anywhere because I have not got the opportunity to prove myself.

“I started to feel as if I shouldn’t have graduated with a first class. As if I shouldn’t have read as much as I did. I began to understand why many students don’t bother to read. I cannot even afford to do a Master’s Programme, let alone a PhD which has always been my dream. Any job I apply for, they ask for as much as 10 years experience and the only experience I have is my NYSC experience.”

She added that she had a five year dream. “I wanted to work for two years, have enough finance to start my own farm and make it big by the end of the fifth year but all the dream has gone down the drain as four years has gone by.”

Okonkwo Theresa, a 2012 first class graduate of the University of Lagos was so happy to assist this reporter with information because she believes that after this publication somebody will assist her with a job.

She said, “I have been doing any job that comes my way. I am assisting my uncle’s friend who has a small office right now. Since I graduated in 2012, I have not done any professional job even as I read accounting and I never got an offer from the university.”

Asked how it has been, she said it has not been easy at all. “I have applied for ICAN; I want to be chartered because I know it will help me when I finally get a job.”

On how far she went job hunting, she said: “I applied for many jobs and even went to write a test with KPMG but didn’t meet the final stage. Another firm I went to called two people who didn’t graduate with a first class and when I spoke with them they said they know someone in the organisation.”

Recalling the day she graduated, she said that day she told herself that she would work in an audit firm but when it didn’t work out she tried banks.  “I will like to be in a financial organisation,” she said.

For Olagoke Kehinde Olalere also a 2011 first class graduate of FUNAAB, when he didn’t hear from his school and got to know that they would only get jobs when a vacancy is announced, he decided to apply for his second degree.

“That is the only thing I have had the opportunity to do with the hope that I will get a job after I graduate. I believe that an additional certificate will help me get a job.

According to him, it was a decision from the beginning in school to graduate with a first class so it took a lot of sleepless nights and reading with hope that graduating with first would give him a upper hand over his colleagues but when he applied to many companies and no one called him, he applied for a Masters Programme.

“I heard that in some schools including FUNAAB, first class graduates get jobs as they graduate but the case wasn’t so with our set as there was a change of government so it was cancelled. That left us disappointed.”

Asked if he is very sure to get employed after his second degree, the Animal Nutrition graduate said: “No, and we have asked our lecturers, they are also looking forward to the management changing their decision. They did not say no employment for first class graduates, they brought up a policy that positions in every department should be opened and made competitive instead of just employing first class but up till now, no position has been opened for application. It was also during this period that Masters Programme school fee was increased so many first class graduates could not come back for their Masters Programme.”

For Foyeke Akinfenwa whose mother and siblings supported through school with the hope that she will repay them in future, when she was posted to the Osun State Ministry of Agriculture to serve, she thought she would be retained.

“I read Animal breeding and genetics in FUNAAB and graduated with a first class. I studied in Moore Plantation Ibadan where I graduated with Upper credit and moved to FUNAAB to join the 300 level students.

“Since I graduated I have not got any jobs. After I finished school, I served but I wasn’t retained so I started searching for jobs but when I didn’t get any, I decided to do a Masters programme which I am still doing.”

In her search for a job, Foyeke confessed to have fallen into the hands of fake job recruiters.

Asked how she feels now, she said, “I feel very bad that after four years I have nothing to show that I graduated with first class. I can’t even encourage my younger ones to do well in school because they are not looking up to me.

“It is discouraging. This is the reason why students don’t read much; they don’t care about academics. They are not motivated anymore because they can count their finger for people that have gotten job after graduating with good result.

“It is affecting the quality of students we are graduating. People feel once they have connections, they don’t need to read, she said.”
In FUNAAB’s defenceThe Nation was able to hear from FUNAAB after trying for more than two months. Response to questions came through Head, Directorate of Public Relations (DPR), Mrs Emi' Alawode.
What provision does FUNAAB have for her first class graduates?

Speaking with Professor Olukayode Akinyemi, the University's Director of Academic Planning, he explained that First Class graduates of FUNAAB are absorbed into the system subject to vacancy, like in every other institution. Every other year, they are encouraged to register for their Master's degree programmed, while awaiting the next opportunity.  "As long as that position is not vacant, it cannot be filled. Normally, a Graduate Assistant is supposed to graduate to become an Assistant Lecturer, after his Master's programme. The Master's programme is two years. It is not compulsory that they must do it here, but here, it is two years. So, if they spend two years for the programme, that means that position is not going to be vacant till after two years." The University also assists them at getting scholarships to study abroad.  However, Professor Adekojo Waheed, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), noted that first class graduates were high fliers. Practically all of them are zealous about further studies abroad. Many would rather seek oppurtunities abroad, than staying back in the system. In actual fact, even after offering them financial support by the University and still keeping their job spaces for them while away as others jostle for the same space. Because of this, the University would have to look for other means to render the service that the staff was employed to render despite all the inconveniences, he said "there are so many of them who have travelled out of this country, and refused to come back to this country". Professor Kayode Akinyemi further added that " virtually all the departments in the University have provisions for one Graduate Assistant at a time, and in filling that vacancy, they will like to have a first class graduate to fill the vacancy. So, any department that graduates more than one will not be able to retain them." 

Since when has this provision become available?
Taking in exceptional graduates of the University is one of the ways the University sustains itself. Professor Waheed emphasised that "situational planning is very much important in any system. We encourage these our first class graduates, that as soon as they finish their youth service to come down and take their Master's." Professor Kayode Akinyemi stated that taking in graduates of the University helped the system to rejuvenate and this is usually done through the Graduate Assistantship Programme. However, in the recent past, FUNAAB had what we called Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) programme and that one needed to be a first class graduate to qualify. He noted that if they were two or three of such for example, the University will chose the fellow with the highest Cummulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), and that if one of them was a female, the University normally gave preference to the female, based on Senate's decision. Nevertheless, Senate in its wisdom felt that the JRF should be abolished and the University should go back to the Graduate Assistantship System, which is the tradition of the Ivory Towers. This helped to bring in first class graduates into the starting position in the academic cadre of all Universities in the country. He added that JRF was not a starting position in the academic cadre. He noted the only difference between the JRF and the Graduate Assistantship, was the wider opportunity it gave to not just first class graduates alone, but also second class upper students, and they would all be subjected to interview before appointment. 

What do you think about a University that decides to bring in policy that says first class graduates should compete with other professionals to get a job in their Alma Mater?

Responding, Professor Kayode Akinyemi said " the wisdom of the Senate was that it is better we make it competitive in the sense that
let the first class graduates also compete with somebody that has a
very good 2.1, because Senate has also observed that there are some
instances where first class graduates compete with 2.1 and even lower and the 2.1 do better than the first class.” He emphasised that Academic jobs were also subjected to available vacancies and that there is no law that says that each University must retain its first class graduates. But rather, the Universities are encouraged to do so. “Because we know that academics is more or less like a cycle, that is, the older academics are graduating. The younger ones are taking their place and the younger ones that must take their place
must be people who are operating at that first class level.” He also agreed that first class graduates are high flyers in the sense that in the next two to three years after graduation, they are desperately looking for opportunities and not jobs. He stressed that when they
eventually get one, they would get it and travel out of the country, hence they are encouraged as much as possible to stay in the University.  He noted that even if they are going to travel out, they must have a kind of bond that wherever they go to, they would have to come back. Other schemes by the University to assist FUNAAB graduates include the Graduate Farming Employment Scheme (GRADFES), that has been supporting graduates to go back to
farming, adding that between N200,000 and N300,000 are given as loans by the University, repayable over a period of two years to start-up, while their certificates were used as collateral.

The implementation of the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovation and Development (PRESSID), which is anchored by the National Universities Commission (NUC), has also assisted first class graduates to actualise their dreams of travelling abroad to study for their Master's and Phds, but not for jobs. Several other opportunities are available to them, such as the Commonwealth Scholarships, whereby the University supports them to complete their applications. Professor Adekojo Waheed added that employing first class graduates cannot be automatic, as the University considers other things which include, but were not limited to "Career Structure and the NUC structure, in respect of the staff list with the population of the department in line with the number of people on ground. Though you cannot just employ without being sure that the money to pay is there, where there were vacancies and people apply, they would definitely be considered."
 

UNILAG also

When The Nation visited the University of Lagos the Dean of Students Affairs, Prof Tunde Babawale, said UNILAG has decided that every first class graduate of the university will be entitled to automatic employment in the department. “That means he is going to be appointed as a graduate assistance and will immediately begin the process of doing their post graduate studies which will eventually lead to the award of a Phd.

So what it means is that a first class graduate after their appointment are assured of getting a Phd at the end of the day and thirdly, they have a regular job, so we have solved that problem.”

Asked when this was decided, he said it was recently decided at the university’s last convocation and announced by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Rahman Bello.

So, what happens to the first class graduates before the last convocation, he said regularly too, the university announces vacancies if it had but this is a special programme that is meant to absorb our high flying student and respond to the increasing expanding labour market and unemployment problem which our students face.

For those who graduated in the past, unless they are registered for a Phd programme, they are not likely to get opportunity of getting employed at least, in the academic department here.

But like every other Nigerian, there are vacancies in any part of the administrative wing of the university, they can jolly well apply. 

But as you know such decision cannot take retroactive effect, if not what year are you going to back date it.
On what he thinks about a university that wakes up one day and says first class graduates are no longer employed automatically but should go and compete with others who are applying in the university, he said, he doesn’t think a university will take that decision. First a first class graduate is not an easy to come by. You rarely have them in departments; these are outstanding, gifted, extremely hard working individuals, so you cannot say they should be competing with anybody. They have shown that they stand out, it is on the basis of that that they are entitled to automatic employment. Those who competed with them have been left behind by their virtue of coming out in first class. So it will be preposterous, almost illogical to say somebody who had proven to be the best should go and compete with people with lesser accomplishments. So it wouldn’t make sense for any university to do that. The university have specially created these position for those outstanding individuals who are always few and given the fact that universities always need man power, there will never be a time when you will not need first class graduates. They are a rare breed. 

On what benefit a first class graduate can add to a university he said, it takes a minimum period of four years for a degree programme and in some cases five years. It takes consistency in scoring high grades to come up with first class. It is not attained by sudden flight, you cannot get it in your 200 level of 300 level; you must have started from your 100 level.
You must start well to end well. It is like a relay race. The contributions they have to make to the economy has to do with developing manpower for the country, helping us to build skill and capacity and competences for young Nigerians, applying their talent, their knowledge, their intellect to add value to the output of the university into the society. It is incalculable, unquantifiable in terms of naira and kobo, it goes beyond what you can calculate in econometric or economic terms. It is something can also viewed in qualitative terms, because these are a hardworking group of individuals who have excelled in their calling and you want them to bring that to bare into the production of people like them so that they can bring that into the system. And you know when you have competent people; excellent individuals coming out of the university, their impact on the society will be felt in every sector. The impact they have on the society is beyond description.

 

First published in The Nation of October 5, 2015