Wale Igbintade
In order to address the high rate of unemployment in the country, EduTimes Africa has proposed to the federal government a programme that would improve the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme by integrating a three to four months mandatory skills acquisition programme for all graduates.
The Chief Executive Officer, EduTimes Africa, Oladapo Akande, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen at a forum recently, as part of its first year anniversary.
Akande lamented Nigeria’s digital, technical and vocational skills deficit which has often led to business organisations having to employ expatriates, many of whom are not university graduates, just to bridge the skills gap.
The helmsman at EduTimes Africa pointed out the irony of being the one who dreamt this proposal to improve the NYSC programme 51 years after his late father, Samuel Babafemi Akande, then a Permanent Secretary during the General Yakubu Gowon administration, pioneered the NYSC scheme.
He said part of the cogent reasons the NYSC scheme was initially introduced was to encourage proper integration of its citizens made up of different tribes, and of course, to ingrain a spirit of service and patriotism in its youth.
Akande noted that “there is hardly a better way in which the Nigerian youth can serve his or her country in these tough times, than to contribute to its economic revival, and what better way to do that, than to skill up and be better empowered to contribute”.
He stated that EduTimes Africa’s proposal to include skills acquisition in the NYSC programme is predicated on the belief that if the graduate’s certificate is unable to put food on the table due to the lack of available jobs, his or her skills will.
Quoting from a 2019 report compiled by UNESCO and UNEVOC and in collaboration with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Mr. Bankole Ojo-Medubi, Executive Director (Operations & Projects) at Westwood Works and a close associate of EduTimes Africa, made the following revelations; “Interest in TVET is lower in Africa than in other regions (DANIDA 2002c). The Nigerian TVET enrollment rate is 5% (10x less than Germany (52%).TVET contribution to GDP – 5% (Germany (25%) and the number of recognised TVET programs in Nigeria – 40+ (Germany has 8x more at 300+).’ Germany, which recently replaced Japan as the world’s 4th largest economy, is famed as an industrial giant.
“In order to position itself in a way that its voice will not only be heard but it will be able to make concrete contributions to the nation’s economy, EduTimes Africa revealed that it was recently onboarded as a member of the Education Policy Commission at the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Nigeria’s biggest and most influential think tank”.
While concluding, the CEO quoted one of EduTimes Africa’s regular columnists, Angora Aman, a TVET specialist in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire who says, “Our future is indeed in our hands, and the hands we need are skilled, trained, and ready to build a prosperous Africa.”
He noted that the introduction of the proposed amendment to the NYSC scheme would go a long way to make the Nigerian graduate more employable and in many cases, empower them with the relevant skills to create their own source of income, adding that whichever way, both they and the society are sure to win.
