The Federal
Government has inaugurated an Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
capacity building programme designed to train graduates in ICT and job-related
skills and make them employable.
The
initiative is executed through the Science and Technology Education Post-Basic
(Step-B) Project under the Federal Ministry of Education, the Ministry of
Labour and Productivity, Ministry of Communications Technology and the
Outsourcing Development Initiative of Nigeria, a private sector company which
trains and connects unemployed graduates with possible employers.
The project
is funded by a credit facility of $180m over six years granted to the federal
government by the World Bank.
At the
inaugural 'Access Job Fair' in Lagos, about 1007 graduate employees who had
been trained, were matched with prospective employers in various sectors of the
economy some of which are aviation, banking, education, engineering,
manufacturing, telecommunications and Information Technology.
Speaking at
the fair, the National Coordinator of Step B, Ministry
of Education, Mr. Michael Adikwu, stated
that the initial project, was to ascertain how effective the training had been;
how many of the graduates were employed at the end of the fair.
According to
him, "there were indications that many of our graduates were not directly
employable because they lacked certain skills. The World Bank thus came up with
New Economic Skills Programme for Africa (NESPA), to help train these
graduates, and make them employable.
"The
job seekers were subjected to about 10 weeks of training, and were tested on
various skills such as grammar, team work, organisational and administrative
skills needed in the workplace. If at the end of the fair, we have a handful of
them employed, we now compare them with the group that was not trained, so you
will be able to see how effective the training has being.
On his part,
the Chairman of the Outsourcing Development Initiative of Nigeria (Odin), Mr.
David Oni, said the outsourcing initiative was to help the government in the
task of job creation.
He said:
"In the last two years or more, job creation is top on the agenda of
government, and we decided to take more practical steps towards ensuring job
creation, because we felt that it was something we could do in partnership with
the government.
"A lot
of our youths today are unemployed. It is not something that can be left to the
government alone. It is a huge task, the public and private sectors have come
together to create jobs. Both sides have learnt to support in so many
ways."
"Creating
a meeting point for employers and prospective employees is the best because the
employers can tell the candidates what they were looking for. I hope that this
Job fair we started is the first of many to come," he said.
A Senior Education Specialist from the World Bank, Mr.
Tunde Adekola, said the initiative was part of the bank's effort
to support government to reduce unemployment in Nigeria.
THISDAY
Nigeria