LAGOS — Education and employment experts have called for closer cooperation between schools and industry, warning that Nigeria's graduates are leaving school without the skills employers need. The call was made at Symposium 5.0, organised by the initiative For the Love of Country and convened by Atinuke Odjenima, under the theme of re-engineering education and driving industrialisation for innovation, productivity and jobs. Speakers pointed to a troubling contradiction in the labour market: unemployment remains high, yet employers continue to complain that they cannot find workers with the right skills. Mrs Adetoun Adewolu-Ogwo argued that a degree on its own no longer prepares young people for work. She proposed the creation of career lighthouses at community or local government level, where jobseekers could receive career guidance, information on job openings, mentorship and personal support. She also urged that training opportunities be extended to people without formal qualifications, who are often left out of employment programmes. Oluwaseyi Anifowoshe, founder of the Initiative for Let There Be Teachers Foundation, focused on the teaching profession. He said teacher education needed urgent reform, alongside better welfare for teachers and stricter enforcement of education policy. To illustrate the scale of the problem, he recalled asking an audience of more than 500 people how many wanted to become teachers; only two or three said yes. Anifowoshe called for tougher admission standards in colleges of education so that they stop being seen as a last resort for applicants who fail to secure places elsewhere. He also demanded greater accountability to ensure that students on teaching practice and corps members actually gain hands-on classroom experience. In her remarks, Odjenima said the country must move from certification to capability. She urged industry to take part in designing school curricula and in reviewing them regularly, so that what is taught keeps pace with the needs of the economy. She added that the cost of education, research and innovation should not be left to government alone, and called on the private sector to share the burden. Odjenima also recommended combining formal education with vocational pathways, giving young people more than one route into productive work. Participants agreed that without such reforms, the gap between what schools produce and what the economy needs would continue to widen.