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One debate among business owners and policymakers' centre on whether higher education institutions (HEIs) are failing to transform the young generation by reorienting education to develop higher competencies, skills, values and behaviours. While previous studies have considered the importance of skills development and its assessment in many contexts, there appears to have been limited scholarly research on employability issues within the Higher education system (HES) in Nigeria. In seeking to address this, it is vital to understand how HEIs in Nigeria conceptualize generic skills and why HEIs have problems with teaching generic skills in its graduate programmes. By adopting a qualitative approach, based on interviews with senior academics, industry executives and final year undergraduates, this study finds that many of HEIs do not facilitate the teaching of high-level generic skills in their programmes. Some of the factors attributed to this include poor learning environment, lack of staff with industry experience and over-dependence on 'theoretical content' teaching. The findings are significant for re-orienting HE curriculum to align with the needs of the industry and society. Regarding, implications for policy, we recommend that enterprise education be mandatory in the curriculum for primary, secondary and tertiary education in Nigeria. Finally, we advocate more inclusive and interpretive research for greater understanding of the issues to offer useful data for policymaking and decision-making on the perspectives of preparing graduates for work.

Purpose Following the outcry of several employers that many higher education (HE) graduates do not possess employability skills and therefore are not employable, the purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine what the labour market (LM) actually demands from the higher education institutions (HEIs) and how the demands of the LM can be met by the HEIs in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on interviews and focus group with 28 university professors, executives of the students’ industrial work scheme (SIWES), industry executives, executive officers of the Directorate of Employment and the HE course/programme leaders that revealed substantial information about what the LM actually requires from the HE, and how the HE can meet the demands of the LM in terms of supply of quality graduates. Findings The key findings reveal that with adequate teaching resources and competent teachers, graduate employability skills (technical and soft), which the LM demands from the HEIs, can be imparted to the students. Concerning LM and HEIs partnerships, it is found that understanding the demands of the LM by the HEIs can enhance the graduates’ outcomes and their prospects in the LM. Research limitations/implications The study argues that the graduate employability is still relevant to the existing practice, but further engagement and research surrounding how the HEIs in the developing countries, especially Nigeria, can meet the actual demands of the LM in terms of competent graduates are needed to examine this range of HE. Originality/value The study provides significant suggestions on the improvement needs of the HE teachers to inspire and motivate students to increase the knowledge (know-how), skills (how to do), self-efficacy (effectiveness) and qualities (technical and creative knowledge) required by the LM.

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