Public Policy and Graduate Employability in Nigeria: Assessing the Role of Digital Skills in the Transition from Higher Education to Employment

Abstract

Nigeria produces more than 500,000 tertiary graduates every year, yet many struggle to secure decent work amid persistent underemployment, skills mismatch and limited formal job creation. At the centre of this challenge is a clear gap between the digital abilities most graduates leave university with and the practical competencies employers now require; national assessments show that most possess only basic skills, while fewer than one in four demonstrate intermediate competence in data handling, digital communication, and workplace software. This paper conceptualises public policy on digital skills development as the independent variable and graduate employability as the dependent variable, mediated by applied digital competence and moderated by infrastructural and socio-demographic access, and assesses how digital skills shape graduates' transition from higher education into employment, examining how policy can close the competence gap through deliberate investment in digital skills. It analyses the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (2020-2030), the National Digital Literacy Framework, the 3 Million Technical Talent programme and the Digital Training Academy. It gets this policy right by assuming digital competence as a key requirement. The presentation is uneven: courses are overly theoretical, lack infrastructure, and impact tracking is weak. Digital training based on real assignments, forming the basis of certification, career and real work linkages, can deliver economic impacts and open new locations for work and trade, but only with infrastructure and employment skills as well. It therefore believes that policy should focus on delivering results through standardised competence certification as part of a graduation/bridge requirement for all training in Nigeria, with programmes creating pathways into jobs and markets over the long term, and employment outcomes tracked, converting Nigeria's graduates into an economic resource.