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Experts in the entrepreneurial field have challenged tertiary institutions graduates not to solely depend on getting white jobs but create new career opportunities.
The experts spoke at the Gown to Town 2026 edition with the theme: Beyond the Certificate: Mastering Value Creation”, which attracted over 175 graduates and students from different institutions.
The Executive Director, Edike Foundation, Mr. Timilehin Akinola, observed that higher institutions certificates are no longer enough to guarantee success in the current evolving labour market.
Akinola said employers now prioritise additional skills, personal character, and long-term purpose over certificates or titles acquired from the institutions.
Akinola, who touched on emerging graduates, young professionals, and aspiring entrepreneurs, urged them to navigate new career paths in the nation’s challenging economic landscape.
“Your journey is about building a business that creates employment and opportunities for a new set of people to learn,” he stated.
When asked what employers look for beyond formal academic qualifications, Akinola, explained that corporate organizations generally are willing to train recruits on technical skills if foundational work ethic is present.
The Edike executive director advised graduates and students to focus on discovering their core purpose early, noting that personal clarity provides direction despite broader socio-economic challenges.
He confirmed that 175 graduates and students registered to participate and stated that the foundation exceeded initial projections.
Meanwhile, he revealed that the Foundation award scholarship as financial support to undergraduate students facing financial difficulties with emphasis on a student who lost a parent.
Currently, the Foundation has awarded scholarship to six students, which covers tuition fees and monthly living stipends to the beneficiaries, adding, “the scholarship is targeted at students who have lost a parent, easing the economic burden on single-parent households.
“Our purpose is rooted in education, and it extends beyond Nigeria as we grow our footprint across other African countries,” Akinola noted.
In her keynote address, the Executive Secretary, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Mrs. Feyisayo Alayande, said, the gown and town programme is designed to bridge academic learning and the realities of the workplace.
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She described the theme of the event as timely and observed that the future of Nigeria will not be determined by how young people graduate but by how many youths can turn what they know into value.
Alayande speech, titled: “Youth, Nation-Building, and the Value Economy: Nigeria’s Next Chapter” said, education matters, knowledge matters, professional qualifications matter stressed that a certificate is not the destination; it is the beginning.
“A certificate tells us that you have acquired knowledge. Value creation demonstrates what you can do with that knowledge. The economy of tomorrow will increasingly reward not only what you know, but what you can solve, build, improve, create, teach, automate and make more efficient; and ultimately, the difference your capability makes to somebody else.
We have to change the way we speak about young Nigerians. Too often, we describe our youth population through the language of unemployment, vulnerability, migration and underemployment. But our young people are not merely a demographic challenge. They are Nigeria’s greatest productive opportunity,” she stated.
On LSTTF, Alayande said it was established to support job and wealth creation and tackle unemployment in Lagos State, noting, that over the past decade, it has learnt something important, which is people do not always lack ambition; sometimes they lack access.
According to her, LSETF work is built around five critical access points: access to affordable finance, access to capacity building, access to business support and markets, access to infrastructure, and access to the technology ecosystem.
She added: “The ultimate measure of education should not simply be how many certificates we produce, but how many problem-solvers, innovators, skilled professionals, entrepreneurs and employers we produce; how many people can take an idea and turn it into an outcome; and how many can look at a Nigerian problem and say, “I can solve this.”
The LSETF boss concluded that Nigeria does not require a generation that is merely waiting for opportunities, but a generation that creates them and also it does not need young people who are defined only by the certificates they carry, “so, to the young people of Nigeria: do not measure your future only by the job you can get. Measure it by the value you can create.”
The Chief Executive Office, Semper Discens, Edememe Oladiji-Wusu, in her presentation, told the graduates, “your certificate is just the beginning. Your degree gives you a foundation. The World doesn’t pay you for what you know. It rewards you for the value you create with what you know.”
She spoke on, “Career Readiness: Becoming a Value Maker in the Real World’’, told the participants that their value determines how far they go in life.
On value, Oladiji-Wusu advised the graduates and students to focus on solving problems by the outcomes they create for people and make things better.
She added: “Career readiness includes financial discipline. Financial discipline doesn’t just help you build wealth. It gives you options.”
The CEO of Semper Discens advised the participants to find their default and further charged them to go into the real World as a value maker.
