Part-time studies crucial to bridging skills gap, says VC

Vice Chancellor of Crawford University, Prof. Rotimi Ajayi, says the relevance of part-time studies cannot be over emphasised as it “helps to develops workers’ skills and prepare them to get new jobs. It also helps people to get employed, minimise or avert joblessness.

In his address at the 12th matriculation of the institution, the helmsman stated that: “Training and re-training help people retain their jobs and also assist those who have left job to be employable just as it is an avenue to develop workers’skills, enhance their employability and increase productivity of enterprises.”

Ajayi added that the world over, training and re-training “offered by part-time studies have become essential components of unemployment policies to address cyclical pressures on the labour market; this way, it helps address skills gap. Skills, it must be emphasised, are great assets for individuals, businesses, people and societies. Paradoxically, while the importance of skills is more pronounced in dynamic, developed economies, the same cannot be said of developing nations. In the 21st Century, skills as critical assets should be given prominence,” he noted.

At the event, three sets of students were administered the matriculation oath. They included the regular students, part-time students and postgraduate students.

The establishment of the School of Part-Time Studies by the university, the vice chancellor said “synchronises with a critical period in the life of the nation, which has never had it so bad with the economy plunging into recession.”