Value-Driven Education as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development: A Capability Approach to Decent Work and the Youth Skills Crisis in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria is facing one of the most critical development issues of the time, which is youth unemployment and lack of skills. The prevailing academic discourse calls for the prioritization of technical and vocational education and entrepreneurship (TVET) as the main strategy to job creation. However, this study argues that while TVET is critical, it remains insufficient without value-driven education. The study seeks to fill this gap by asking the question of how value driven education can contribute to expanding youth capacities and creating decent jobs as a basis for sustainable development. The study adopted a mixed qualitative research design, involving the systematic qualitative synthesis of twenty recent Nigerian studies, reflexive thematic analysis of the findings and conceptual analysis using the Human Capability Approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. There are five themes resulting from the thematic analysis. The vocational and entrepreneurship consensus, the training to employment gap, the emergent turn towards values and mindset, sector and inclusion specificity, and the graduate employability paradox are here. The study proposes that skill acquisition alone does not increase the employability of young people, unless it is accompanied by the development of the ethical agency to help them use skills to pursue productive and dignifying livelihoods.