The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ali Pantami, has urged universities to emphasise more on skills acquisition than paper qualification, adding that such will make graduates self-reliant.

Pantami said this at the inauguration of ICT Incubation Park at the Gombe State University built by the National Information Technology Development Agency.

He said, “In developed countries, less preference is given to paper qualification, more attention is paid to skill acquisition. Paper qualification is supposed to be a validation of the skills acquired. It is the skill that does the work not the paper.

“I have been engaging my colleagues in the federal executive council to join hands together to give less preference to paper qualification and focus more on skills acquisition.

“By producing graduates with skills, we are producing potential employers because graduates with skills focus more on entrepreneurship, while graduates without skills focus on government employment. They don’t have the skills to be entrepreneurs, self-reliant.”

By Chima Azubuike