The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD), Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, has said the training of 3,300 beneficiaries of N-Knowledege programme is to help young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills that will ensure they become solution providers and entrepreneurs in their communities.
Speaking Wednesday in Abuja, at the closing ceremony of the N-Knowledge Expansion training coordinated in the FCT and training camps in six geo-political zones, Farouq said that programme is focused on equipping young Nigerians with relevant skills and certification to become competent workers, innovators and entrepreneurs prepared for both the domestic and global digital job market.
She said: “I am delighted to bid farewell to trainees of the N-Knowledge training programme for the 6 geo-political zones of the country. Let me commence by congratulating the 1,500 beneficiaries out of 3,300 who reported to the different training camps and were trained during this period, thus marking the end of the N-Knowledge Expansion Training programme.
“It is a well-known fact that N-Power programme is a critical part of the National Social Investment Programmes domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD) and designed to achieve the National objectives of poverty reduction and job creation. Critical in the sense that this deals with youth demography. The N-Power programme is key to helping young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills that ensure they become solution providers and entrepreneurs in their communities.
“During the training sessions where you all learnt the core components of the programme in the respective tracks, these well-organized curricula are meant to shape you in the choice of your trades to become useful to yourselves and develop competencies which will increase production and add to the overall growth of the society.
“You will confirm by now that N-Knowledge programme is focused on equipping young Nigerians with relevant skills and certification to become competent workers, innovators and entrepreneurs prepared for both the domestic and global digital job market. N-Knowledge programme targets to upskill 3,300 young Nigerians on the global radar as exporters of world- class services and content in the creative and information technology sectors.
“This training component is targeted at developing competencies of the youth in software development, Hardware training and creative industry which is catalytic as well as the groundwork to make Nigeria compete in the outsourcing market for software development. It will develop the skills and capacities along the skills set in the value chain of website development, mobile apps maintenance and start the talent development effort for the growth of information technology industry in Nigeria.”
She added: “The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development is committed to ensuring that the strategic objectives of all the social intervention programmes are achieved and sustained. We have documented evidence what a lot of you have come out with at the different training camps such as developing cartoon applications and other creative arts. These are all encouraging and clearly shows that you all assimilated what you were taught which the Federal Government has invested heavily on.
“This includes the cost of your accommodation which is borne by Federal Government across the 6 training camps, your monthly feeding allowance and your transport allowances of N30,000 divided into N15, 000 when reporting to camps and another N15,000 as you are returning from the camp.
“Your stay during this training period has instilled discipline in you and has remodeled you towards the tasks ahead most especially on lifeskills reorientation. This is significant because you were introduced to Life-Skills and attitude re-orientation, work ethics and rules of engagement were also exposed to you. This is reformative.
“I am informed that a continuous assessment, class tests and examinations were administered on you which clearly confirms your readiness to learn and assimilate what you were taught to become useful citizens.
“Let me assure you that your monthly stipends of Ten Thousand Naira (N10,000) for the period of nine months will commence right from your first day at registration and will continue to the end of your apprenticeship period.
“The different training tools are being provided to aid in your further development. These were procured to enable you maximize the skills learnt during your stay in the camp and to start off with your vocation. I hereby present these training tools and their complimentary accessories to you.
“Above all, your certificates of completion of training which is an attestation of good behaviour and attendance is sealed and delivered to you. All the training tools were carefully designed to meet the needs of the different programme tracks in Hardware maintenance, software development and Creative design.
“I want to thank His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari for his administration’s unwavering efforts in eradicating poverty in our country and for supporting and sustaining the National Social Investment Programme. Mr. President has approved the expansion of N-Power to accommodate one million beneficiaries.
“We have carefully implemented this where the batch C1 accommodated a total of 510,000 beneficiaries and the batch C2 a total of 490,000. In order to enlist more Nigerian youths into the programme, the NPRGS approved the Expansion where you form part of it as this is not our usual target of between 10,000 to 20,000 trainees.”
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, said that the trainees were well advised to imbibe all the skills and reorientation that were well organized for them during their stay in the different training camps.
“As we all know, N-Power programme is an all-inclusive programme that focuses primarily on unemployed Nigerian youth with the aim of developing their employability and entrepreneurial skills. The N-Power programme which is for young Nigerians between the ages of 18-35 is a brain child of the Buhari-Osinbajo Administration and this has recorded tremendous successes over the years.
“I would want to emphasize again that every trainee must see this opportunity as a blessing that must not be wasted. Having interacted with various kinds of people from different background, making friends, learning together, discovering together, then put all these efforts to practice as this will shape your future.
“Recall that several thousand applied for this same programme and you got the opportunity to be engaged having satisfied the selection criteria. This should be taken seriously,” he said.
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