The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has appealed to the World Bank and other development partners to assist the directorate to rehabilitate the prime movers of Mobile Training Workshop, known as School On Wheels.
Director General NDE Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo made the appealed when he played host to officials of the World Bank and of the German Agency for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft for Internationale Zusammenarbeit) GIZ and Embassy of Netherlands in a separate occasions.
According to a statement signed by Head, Information and Public Relations of NDE, Israel Adekitan , the DG said the need for the rehabilitations of the Prime Movers was because the equipment was procured from Germany over 30 years ago.
Fikpo said the School-on-Wheel Scheme was designed to extend the skill acquisition training programme of the Directorate to the unemployed Nigerians in the rural areas where informal training outlets are deficient or non-existent.
He described the School on-Wheel as an innovative training Scheme designed by the NDE to reach certain locations where even temporary training outlets cannot be set up and hence people especially youths in such locality remained deprived of their right to learn vocational skills.
He said the training is carried out through the deployment of well-equipped Mobile Training Workshops (MTWs) to the designated underprivileged rural communities for a minimum period of three months in the first instance with a view to creating a pool of artisans that will readily address the needs of the rural environment and promote economic activities therein.
“It is a caravan modified into training workshop with all necessary training modules. It provides a stable setting in which trainees learn basic vocational skills with sustained regular training activities for their overall development. Usually training circles are conducted with specific skills based on the employment needs of each rural community,” THE DG said.
Training modules of NDE MTWs include technical skills such as Refrigeration, Panel beating, Welding and Fabrication, Masonry, Plumbing, Auto electrician, Hair Dressing, Tailoring and other domestic skills. NDE’s Mobile Training Workshops also help in creating awareness on the importance of skill acquisition and self-employment especially at the rural communities.
The DG said, aside serving as significant tool of the Federal Government
towards transformation of rural communities, NDE’s Mobile Training Workshop is also one of the major collaborative instrument through which Private organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Spiritual bodies such as churches, mosques, Heads of communities and even Philanthropists use as window to partner with NDE, build and acquire vocational skills for their youths and subjects towards job creation.
The DG further told the visitors that cost of job creation in Nigeria was on the rise against limited budgetary allocations of the government.
He also lamented the poor state of the Prime Movers of the Mobile Training Workshops.
He said NDE School-on-Wheel could no longer cover many localities as it used to do due to the fact that some of the engines have completely worn-out while others are becoming unserviceable.
Fikpo said unemployment in Nigeria is a function of the geometric rising population and ignorance of the people on the importance of skill acquisition, Mallam Abubakar fikpo added that the Directorate has created over four millions jobs in the recent times and many Nigerians are self-employed through the efforts of the NDE.
Responding, the leading consultant of the World Bank, Prof. Omobowale Oni, said the World Bank was willing to work with the federal government in the area of synergy in order to assist in creating a unified framework with which all job creation agencies can work with, create more jobs and move the country forward.
He noted that what is lacking essentially in Nigeria is good collaboration and synergy among the job creation agencies, adding that NDE is trying her best but the challenge of unemployment keeps mounting due to lack of synergy.
“Over the years, NDE has produced many technicians and created thousands of blue collar jobs in the rural areas thereby stemming the rural urban drift in the country.
“Statistics show that over 150,000 hitherto unemployed Nigerians have been trained in the recent times and empowered to establish their businesses through the Resettlement Loan Scheme (RLS) of the NDE, majority of who have become master craftsmen and women in different locations of the country. These artisans have also trained hundreds of other unemployed youths and are all contributing to the national economy,” the NDE boss further said.
