The Nasarawa State Government has commenced three weeks training for 80 Youths selected from across the 13 local governments on employability and entrepreneurship in Lafia the state capital.
Flagging off the training session on Tuesday, Governor Abdullahi Sule said education as a whole means nothing if employability and entrepreneurship are missing.
He noted that the skills the selected youths will acquire during the training is what will make them employable or employers.
While noting that his administration takes employability and entrepreneurship seriously, the Governor urged the participants to also take the training seriously, with a view to making Nasarawa State a better place for all.
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Governor Sule disclosed that his administration will soon kick-start a training programme for people who have graduated from universities or polytechnics, with certain degrees or HNDs, that makes it difficult for them to be employed.
Earlier in her welcome remarks, Habiba Balarabe Suleiman, Senior Special Assistant to the Governor and Focal Person, Human Capital Development, said the programme, which is life changing, is being hosted by the Nasarawa State Government, through the Human Capital Development Office, in collaboration with Oxfam Nigeria as funding partners and Poise Graduate Finishing Academy Lagos, as implementing partners.
While lamenting that unemployment has continued to pose a challenge to the country’s development agenda, with a lot of concentration on job creating opportunities expected to create wealth and reduce poverty, little attention was given to ensuring people have requisite skills and knowledge, to effectively drive those jobs to a value point output.
For that reason, the SSA said it has become necessary either as individuals, collectively or as a government, to provide avenues for such training that will increase the employability level of the teeming youths in the state.
Also Innih Ikhide, Head, Poise Graduate Finishing Academy, said the training session is expected to bridge the gap in the knowledge obtained in the university and the demand for the work place.
While noting that the academy has so far empowered over 44, 000 youths in Lagos, Edo States, as well as across the country, the participants in Nasarawa will be empowered with 21st century soft skills and ICT skills that will turn them into great executives.
The job fair, which is another aspect of the training, is scheduled to hold on Thursday, at the Taal Conference Hotel.
