The capability approach and national development in Nigeria: towards a youth transition model

Abstract

This paper adapts a qualitative-dominant mixed method approach by utilizing policy documents, semi-structured interviews (SSIs), a focus group discussion, and structured questionnaires (SQs) to explore the transitio n-related bottlenecks that impede capability development processes across the education-work transition pathway, with a specific focus on the national youth service corps (NYSC) route. This paper reveals that youth's (aged 18-30) ability to navigate the formal education phase, partly depends on multi-stakeho lder contributions that provide support structures to ensure youth obtain a tertiary degree before they reach age 30. Successful completion of the formal education phase makes them eligib le to be mobilized into the one-year mandatory NYSC route. While in the NYSC, youth capability development programmes (YCDPs) ensure that youths are further developed and deployed to opportunity structures needed to address national development needs. The challenge however is that both mobilization processes and deployment policy frameworks create restrictive bottlenecks that impede the effective functioning and freedoms for youth capabilities to thrive. This paper broadly contributes to human resource development practice by utilizing a youth capability analytic framework to better understand how well youth capabilities can be further developed and strategically aligned/misaligned in addressing complex national developme nt challenges as youth navigate the education-work transition pathway.

Putting the individual and context back into national human resource development research: A systematic review and research agenda

“…They focused on interactions between the exosystem and ontogenic levels, with particular attention on how high unemployment among youths and young adults could be combatted through HRD, thereby meeting the overall socio‐economic goals of the country. Arubayi and Akobo (2018) gave prominence to interactions between exosystem characteristics and lower levels of the EST framework in suggesting that efforts to improve youth unemployment and equip young people with relevant skills to enter or compete in the labour market in Nigeria have been largely unsuccessful, because they did not engage with ontogenic characteristics and customize NHRD provision.…”

Program Planning and Animated Videos as Learning Tools in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…The HRD community is steadily producing quality research focused on African experiences. Recent works include studies of learning transfer (Kiwanuka, Miiro, Matsiko, & Nkalubo, 2020;Suleiman, Dassanayake, & Abang Othman, 2018), teacher training (Oonyu, 2019), higher education (Johnson, 2019), skills & capabilities development (Arubayi & Akobo, 2018;Oats & Gumbo, 2019;Otchia & Yamada, 2019;Yamada, Otchia, & Taniguchi, 2018), healthcare and literacy systems (Akello, Lutwama-Rukundo, & Musiimenta, 2017;Davis, Arana, Creel et al, 2018;Davis, Menser, Juarez, Tomaszewski, & Kash, 2019;Regmi, 2019;Wekullo, Davis, Nafukho, & Kash, 2018), promoting learning (Biney, 2019), and leadership development (Modisane, 2018) post-coloniality and NHRD (Ekuma, 2019), and collaborations in North-South scientific international projects (Lutomia, 2019). While various components of program planning are discussed throughout this literature, none of the recent studies center a planning process in their research.…”

Perception of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) among corps medical doctors in Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

“…With studies having shown that mental health problems are more common among medical personnel [13], corps medical doctors are at risk of various psychosocial problems which may or may not be related to their profession. The lack of adequate support structure has been implicated in the poor performance of the scheme [14]. A study by O S Fadairo in 2010 concluded that the influence of the NYSC scheme on the development of youth corps members was perceived to be poor by the majority of the respondents [15].…”