By Bashir Mohammed
Kano
Project Director of Graduate Internship Scheme, Mr. Peter Papka, has said that the main objective of the Scheme was the resolve to enhance the employability of at least 50, 000 unemployed graduates in the 36 states of the federation.
Speaking at the stakeholders’ Forum for export sector firms organised by graduate internship scheme in Kano, Papka said government recognised the fact that all stakeholders from federal, state and local governments, the organised private sector, and development organisations in the religious organisations must rise to reverse the unemployment trend.
He said the federal government “knows it cannot do this alone and is aware of the fact that manpower development is critical to the attainment of Vision 20:2020.
He, however, stated that the graduate internship scheme was providing a plat form for the reduction of vulnerability among unemployed Nigerian graduates, adding that internship from experience provided soft landing for many graduates in finding direction for their lives either through jobs or entrepreneurship.
He said: “It is our hope that this scheme will be sustained as a veritable bridge between the school and the job market so that Nigerian graduates would disrobe the toga of despondence on completion of national service.”
He further revealed that key lessons emerging from partnership firms around the country indicate that many graduates are willing to excel and are utilising GIS to do so, saying that firms were also utilising the Scheme in determining prospective candidates for their employment without having to search wide.
In his welcome address, the executive director of Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, said there was the need for the integration of the GIS in the non-oil export development, stressing, however, that it was a collaborative effort aim at making the nation’s graduates to be gainfully employed.
Awolowo, who was represented by a Director in the Council, Mr. Oladije M. Ibrahim, said the partnership was part of the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to acquaint the graduates with the much-needed skills in the capacity building to excel.
