Gerard Izuora
In a bid to reduce unemployment and the number of jobless youths, the Ogun State government is partnering with German Embassy and has put a program in place to ensure that 5,000 jobless youths and women are meaningfully engaged through skills acquisition and vocational training which will later metamorphose to human capital development that offers manufacturing and service-providing firms with manpower.
The partnership arrangement, according to Bimbo Ashiru, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, is to ensure that 5,000 jobless youths and women are trained and empowered with skills acquisition such as construction, building service, automotive engineering, business studies, beauty and hairdressing, hospitality and catering, land and animals, travel and tourism, among others.
He added that trainees would be engaged in batches for a six-month training and intensive coaching on technical and vocational engagements for which the trainees are expected to be awarded London City and Guilds Certificates in addition to internships in various countries across Europe and start-up funds.
Governor Ibikunle Amosun while speaking in Abeokuta on the admission of the first batch of 500 trainees drawn across 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas in the State said that government places more much emphasis on technical and industrial trainings with a view to feeding ever increasing presence of manufacturing and service-providing industries.
Governor Amosun said it had dawn on the Nigerians and Nigeria government that vocational training and skills acquisition are major elements on human capital development that could create wealth and much needed employment opportunities for teeming graduate, but jobless youths and women roaming the streets.
He added that the programme was intended to run in two locations across the State in addition to the place of pilot phase at the Technology Incubation Centre in Onijanganjangan in Abeokuta, saying government is ever ready to provide single-digit loan for all the successful trainees as start-up funds to finance any areas of training interest to the trainees and participants.
Earlier, Bernhard Schlagheck, German Ambassador to Nigeria, noted that the training was initiated to improve on the employability of the Nigerian youths in the labour market through solid vocational and technical skills, explaining that various relevant firms are already waiting for the trainees in Europe to work, even if the trainees chose not to work in manufacturing and service-providing firms in the country.
Schlagheck, who was joined by Cliff Ogbede, Project Co-ordinator of Foreign Trade and Investment Services Africa (FTAISA), an economic initiative under German Embassy, added that the programme would not only empower the trainees in terms of skills acquisition and vocational training, but would also expose the participants to the best world practice in terms of technology and entrepreneurship