18/05/2026
A Degree No Longer Guarantees Employability in Africa’s Workforce Market
On May 5th, I stood in front of over 3,000 corps members at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Sagamu, Ogun State.
Something happened that still worries me even after two whole week.
We had promised them access to a free employability and remote work readiness course, a short 90-minute training to help them understand workplace expectations, digital readiness, and global opportunities.
To access it, they simply needed to scan a QR code.
Very straightforward.
Or at least, that was what I thought.
After the session, a few corps members walked up to me saying:
“Ma, the QR code is not working.”
At first, I assumed maybe there was an issue with the link.
But then one of them showed me how she was trying to scan it.
She opened WhatsApp.
Went to settings.
Clicked on the QR scanner inside WhatsApp.
Then tried scanning the code from there.
I watched quietly for a few seconds.
Then I noticed something immediately.
The scanner literally had an instruction written below it:
“Scan a WhatsApp QR code.”
Meaning the scanner was specifically designed for WhatsApp QR codes, not general QR codes.
So I took my phone, opened my camera, clicked Google Lens, scanned the code, and the webpage opened almost instantly.
The interesting part was not even the QR code itself.
It was what that moment represented.
These were graduates.
Bright young people.
People who had successfully passed through Nigeria’s education system.
People about to enter the labour market.
Yet something as fundamental as scanning a QR code had already become a barrier to accessing an employability opportunity.
Honestly, this is the part of the employability conversation many people still struggle to confront directly.
A degree is no longer enough on its own.
I am not saying education is useless.
I taught at the SFS University of Lagos for years.
I have a strong academic background myself.
During my Master’s in Environmental Chemistry, I graduated with a GPA 4.92.
I later proceeded for my PhD and did a part of my benchwork in the UK.
Academically, I was solid, but one of the biggest shocks of my early international experience was realising that brilliance alone was not enough inside modern work systems.
Ex*****on mattered.
Digital fluency mattered.
Communication mattered.
Structured thinking mattered.
Adaptability mattered.
And over the last 16 years of employing labour across both my fashion business and now an EdTech company, I have realised something else:
The labour market rewards value creation, not educational effort alone.
That distinction is uncomfortable for many people, but it is the reality employers are dealing with daily.
According to the IFC - International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank Group Bank’s Africa Skills Decade initiative, employers across Sub-Saharan Africa consistently identify skills gaps as one of the biggest constraints to productivity and business growth.
The African Development Bank has also repeatedly highlighted that Africa’s youth unemployment and underemployment crisis is deeply tied to skills mismatch, where educational outcomes do not align with labour market realities.
If we are serious about employability in 2026, we have to stop reducing this conversation to certificates alone.
Employability today increasingly depends on:
• digital literacy
• communication skills
• ex*****on ability
• adaptability
• AI readiness
• problem-solving
• workplace systems understanding
These are now foundational workforce skills.
This is also why I keep saying that many African graduates are not necessarily unintelligent.
What many of them are experiencing is a workforce preparation gap.
The labour market changed faster than many educational systems adapted.
That gap is what our organisations; ITrainAfrica is now trying to close.
If someone struggles with something as basic as understanding how to properly scan a QR code, what happens when they enter:
• remote work systems?
• digital reporting environments?
• AI-enabled workflows?
• international collaborative teams?
That is the real workforce question.
I think policymakers, universities, employers, and even parents need to start engaging this conversation more honestly.
Degrees may still open doors, but workplace capability is increasingly what keeps those doors open.
If we do not confront that reality directly, we may continue producing graduates faster than we are producing workforce-ready talent.
Dr Aderinsola Adio-Adepoju
Global Employability Strategist | Innovation & Workforce Systems Architect
