A three-week intensive career kick-start training on employability, entrepreneurship and job fair for 80 youths selected from across the 13 local government areas of the state, has commenced in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.
Nasarawa State Governor, Engineer Abdullahi Sule, flagged off the training session, at the Conference Hall of the Ministry for Local Government, Community Development and Chieftaincy Affairs, on Tuesday.
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.
She stated that the Nasarawa State Human Capital Development Office, through its council, under the Chairmanship of the State Deputy Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Akabe and mandated to accelerate growth and development by the year 2030, has adopted youths as one of its thematic areas.
Habiba Balarabe Suleiman assured both the funding and implementing partners of total support by the Nasarawa State Government, under the stewardship of Engineer Abdullahi Sule, an advocate of the private sector approach, geared towards optimising skills and knowledge to maximise value production for the emerging knowledge based economy.
In his remarks during the opening ceremony of the training session, Nasarawa State Governor, Engineer Abdullahi Sule, said education as a whole means nothing if employability and entrepreneurship are missing.
According to Engineer Sule, 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.
Engineer 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, 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.
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