By Moses John
Abuja
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) is to establish Job Corps to provide manpower for the infrastructural development initiative of President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government.
The acting Director-General of NDE, Kunle Obayan, who spoke in Abuja also disclosed that the directorate would train senior secondary students during their long vacation in vocational skills.
Obayan who said joblessness started at the secondary school level, disclosed that the NDE was embarking on the out-of-school-to-work initiative to tackle unemployment at the root.
“The NDE would soon roll out school-to-work programme for students in Senior Secondary School 11 and 111. We have come to know that unemployment starts from that level and our plan going forward is to do more work on the junior secondary students.
“The plan is to involve them in some productive ventures when they are not in school especially during the long vacation, they would go for training in our training centres instead of staying at home and idle away.
The NDE would also give them some stipends to enable them come into the training facilities and then go back home after training. We would profile them and see what skill set is good for them. In fact, they would do different ones in the two years period so by the time they are leaving the facilities, they would have acquire two sets of skills.
“By the time they are in SS3 and possibly be waiting for their result, the NDE would then attach them to firms for that period. By the time they finish the attachment programme, they would be ready to do something instead of them roaming the streets.”
The NDE boss, however, revealed that the programme was due to begin this 2016 during the long vacation.
On the ‘Job Corps’, Mr. Obayan, said entails refreshing people that had been trained before, but were not resettled in construction skills.
