Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{206435,
        author = {Zincware Peretonghanbofa and Kifordu A. Anthony},
        title = {Digital Skills Acquisition and Employability Outcomes of University Graduates in Nigeria},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {2},
        pages = {1979-1995},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=206435},
        abstract = {Nigeria produces over 500,000 university graduates annually, yet youth unemployment persists above 33 per cent a paradox driven substantially by a widening mismatch between the digital competency’s graduates possess and those that twenty-first-century employers’ demand. This paper examines the relationship between digital skills acquisition and the employability outcomes of university graduates in Nigeria through a systematic empirical and conceptual review of literature published between 2015 and 2026. The review draws on peer-reviewed studies retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, Google Scholar, and African academic repositories, and is anchored on Human Capital Theory, Signalling Theory, and the European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.2). Findings reveal that Nigerian graduates consistently exit the university system with digital competencies at foundational levels insufficient for the intermediate and advanced proficiencies employers require in data management, digital communication, cloud-based workflows, and cybersecurity. Technology-enhanced learning environments are constrained by access inequities and teacher capacity deficits, while university credentials have progressively lost credibility as signals of practical digital competence to private-sector employers. Structured, modular, and practice-driven digital skills interventions produce statistically significant and practically large competence gains. The paper proposes the Digital Skills Employability Pathways Model (DSEPM) as a theoretically grounded account of how digital competence translates or fails to translate into labour market outcomes through three distinct causal pathways, each moderated by structural factors including gender, regional infrastructure, and socioeconomic background. The paper concludes that the digital skills deficit is tractable but requires coordinated institutional response, and recommends that the National Universities Commission integrate a verified digital competence benchmark into minimum academic standards across all disciplines, that universities embed practice-oriented digital skills training into curricula, and that the National Information Technology Development Agency structurally align graduate digital skills programmes with university credit frameworks.},
        keywords = {digital competence; digital skills; employability outcomes; graduate unemployment; university graduates},
        month = {July},
        }