Towards winning the menace of unemployment in Nigeria, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has reportedly gone beyond skill acquisition and training to providing transient jobs for Nigeria’s graduates, purposely to expose and equip them with the needed work experience in the area of their field of study.
The Director-General (DG) of the NDE, Abubakar Fikpo revealed this over the weekend in a brief interview with some newsmen in Abuja.
When asked to clarify the type of jobs being given to Nigeria’s graduates, as was claimed by the NDE, the DG said, “On what we are doing for graduates; currently, we have two strategic and effective job creation skills that have to do with graduates. The first one is called the Graduate Attachment Programme. In this programme, we recruit graduates from diploma and above and we post them to different government owned and private sector businesses in the areas that are relevant to their field of study.
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“The reasons we do this is; one: for them to acquire the basic and necessary experience that employers require. Number two, we target to expose them to work environments. So that by the time we are handing off, they have acquired enough experience to work anywhere. This also helps to enrich their curriculum vitae. So we provide a transient and not a permanent job and the intent is basically to expose them to a working environment which we are sure will help them acquire the needed experience.
“Thirdly, our reason for doing this is; if they make themselves relevant by being efficient and effective, that organization will not let them go. And for your information at the moment, we are writing and commending organizations that have retained graduates like that. There are many organizations who have retained many of them, surprisingly.
“We send the graduates for the duration of three months; sometimes, for six months. By the time the period lapses, many of the organisations would not want to let them go. They absorb many of them.
The second strategic job creation one that has to do with graduates is called the Graduate Coaching Scheme. In this one, we are using a stone to kill two birds. One we are engaging the graduates, two we are targeting school leavers who are deficient in their O’ levels and cannot gain admission into any tertiary institution.
“What we do is; we get these graduates together and ask them to coach these people. So, they can make up for their deficiencies and then gain admission and move forward. So these are some of the things we have that have to do with graduates and graduates alone.”
When enquired if the job creation programmes were really helping to lift the millions of unemployed Nigerians and households from poverty, Mr Fikpo responded, “The negative effect of unemployment touches virtually every household in our country. Every household feels the impact of employment in this country. And we believe that with the support we have been receiving from the government to impact upon the lives of unemployed Nigerians as well as those living in serious poverty, we are really making a difference.
“Our target is, if these unemployed Nigerians can’t come to us, we should be able to go to them. We should be able to educate them at their doorsteps about the opportunities that are available.
“We believe they can take advantage of our skills acquisition programmes to either be self-employed or even provide jobs for others. Although we have structures in all States of the Federation, we try to reach out by establishing our presence in all the local government areas. Thus why we believe that the media is one effective partner for which we can collaborate in order to enlighten the people out there, in order to educate and spread the activities the NDE has been doing.
“As of today, we are implementing what we have been planning. We have spoken about our job creation programmes and the people who have actually acquired skills and those that are actually undergoing training, are really doing it and they are committed to doing it, and that is what we have been trying to showcase.
“Our target is to ensure that by the time they graduate, people should have confidence in them. The government cannot do it all for them. The government provides the necessary requisite opportunities by making training facilities available to them. And to some extent, the government too provides capital for them, supports them with capital to establish their businesses.”
On the willingness of the Federal Government to make available more funds and as well as collaborate with private sector businesses to provide funding for the beneficiaries of NDE’s skills-trained graduates, the DG stated, “On funding for them to either start or expand their businesses, the effects of economic meltdown still leave with us in Nigeria and globally.
“But that does not stop us from planning and proposing. We have been planning, proposing, sourcing and linking participants to financial establishments, to financial organizations, for them to be able to access funding.
“We do not believe that we can provide them with all the necessary capital, which is why we provide a linkage for them. We link them up with CBN, we link them up with other organizations so that they can access funding.
“Now, aside from that, we have just had our collaboration with the World Bank. We call that project YESSO. Through the project, after training, the World Bank supported the beneficiaries each one of them with a maximum of N250,000.
“So we have our window of collaboration. Aside from the fact that the NDE also provides little funding. We have a window of collaboration with other government agencies, private institutions, or even philanthropist, good Nigerians who are willing to support the people around them.
“The truth is, government can’t cater for all but it does what it can with the resources available, and then paves the way for others to also imitate and lend their support. The private sector, the philanthropists and committed patriotic Nigerians who are willing to support unemployed Nigerians.
We have others who have approached us because of the passion they have for lifting people who are living in abject poverty. These patriotic Nigerians are willing to provide employment to unemployed Nigerians.”
Asking how effective the skill acquisition programme had so far been in terms of the tools required to train beneficiaries, the NDE DG replied “We are deliberately conscious of upgrading existing skill acquisition centres for effective utilization in view of winning the war against unemployment.
“In fact, we are hoping that our budgetary allocation will be made sufficient to enable us do the much we are expected to do.”
He further disclosed that the NDE was in talks with the Embassy of Belarus, and also proposed visiting the Warri Model Skill Centre for them to also support the agency by upgrading some of their facilities.
The NDE has done noble if what the DG highlighted herein are truly being carried out by the agency. However, they must deploy a technique that would ensure these graduates become self-reliant the moment they leave their respective tertiary institutions of learning, without going through any further tutelage.