By Augustine Okezie
The Federal government through the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) has commenced the training of Out-of-School Youths in the north-central and south eastern zones.
The training programme which is coming after an earlier one in the South-South zone and running concurrently at Minna, Niger state and Abakaliki, Ebonyi state will run for four weeks with participants acquiring training in the areas of Screen printing, snack production, hair dressing, barbing, GSM repairs and entrepreneurship.
Speaking at the flag-off of the training programme at Minna, Niger state, the Executive Secretary, NERDC, Prof. Godswill Obioma, noted that empowering out-of-school youths, as sustainable economic players, will productively add to the process of engaging functional education as one of the strategies of achieving Nigeria’s vision 20-2020.
According to him, “the main objectives are to empower out-of-school youths through skill acquisition; with a view to alleviating poverty and reducing unemployment in the country and, in the process stem the increasing incidences of youth restiveness”.
Prof. Obioma who disclosed that NERDC has developed curricula modules to be used for the training of the youths in the following trades of Snack production, screen printing, hair dressing, barbing, GSM repairs and entrepreneurship equally hinted that the Council has established and equipped incubation centres in each of the six geopolitical zones: Calabar for the South-south; Lagos for the South-west; Abakaliki for the South-east; Minna for the North central; Damaturu for the North east and Kano for the North-west.
In his address, the Minister of state for Education, Chief (Barr.) Ezenwo Nyesom Wike said that the present initiative by NERDC which seeks to empower out-of-school youths through skill acquisition, is one of the ways of promoting the actualization of the ideals of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
The Minister who was represented by Engr. M. K. Offor, the Director Technical Education of the Federal Ministry of Education commended NERDC management and Governing Board for the initiative and putting in place mechanism for its successful implementation and said that “given the importance of this programme, I wish to assure you that the federal ministry of education will put in place necessary measures to ensure the expansion and sustenance of this programme, especially in the area of funding”.
The training workshop which has five participants from each state of the North central zone: Niger, Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and FCT was graced by the Niger state governor who was represented by the Director, Youth and Sports Development of the state ministry of youth development.
