Graduate Employability: Ribara, APWEN  Engage Engineering Students on Career Readiness

Funmi Ogundare

As universities across Nigeria intensify efforts to align academic training with labour market demands, collaboration among academia, industry and professional bodies has been identified as critical to improving graduate employability.

This formed the focus of discussions at the 2025 Career Summit of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN), Lagos State University chapter, where employability platform, Ribara, joined educators and industry professionals to engage engineering students on career development beyond formal certification.

The summit, themed, ‘Not Just an Engineer: Finding Your Path Beyond the Certificate’, held at the Lagos State University, brought together female engineering students, young professionals and industry leaders to examine skills relevance, mentorship and pathways for career advancement. 

Ribara, an employability and education data infrastructure developed by professionals affiliated with Covenant University and Harvard University, focuses on helping students and early-career professionals assess and improve job readiness.

Speaking at the programme, the Communications Team Lead at Ribara, Esther Chidi Bernard, explained that  the initiative was aimed at exposing participants to the practical realities of the engineering profession while equipping them to respond to changing industry expectations.

Its participation at the summit, she added, reflected a growing shift by institutions towards measurable employment outcomes alongside traditional academic indicators.

Bernard identified skills mismatch, limited visibility into career pathways and the lack of structured employability feedback as major challenges confronting graduates. 

“The platform currently supports over 7,000 users and partners with several universities to enhance curriculum relevance and workforce preparedness,” she said.

The theme of the summit, she stated, captured concerns among students about translating academic training into sustainable careers. 

Participants were urged to view engineering not merely as a qualification but as a foundation for diverse career opportunities across technology, innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship.

A one-day engineering career expo held alongside the summit focused on mentorship, networking and industry exposure. 

According to the communications team lead, the expo was designed to bridge skills gaps, strengthen industry-academia linkages and inspire the next generation of female engineers to pursue technical excellence and leadership roles.

Stakeholders at the event noted that as debates on graduate employability deepen, forums such as the APWEN career summit underscore a broader shift in higher education discourse; from graduation outcomes to workplace readiness and the responsibilities of institutions in closing existing skills gaps.