NDE: There are Insufficient Funds to Resettle 33,886 Trained Youths Nationwide
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has lamented the non-availability of funds with which to resettle more than 33,886 trainees of its various employment promotion initiatives across the country.
It said that out of the over 33,886 Nigerians youths in various demand-driven skills in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the agency was only able to resettle 4,683 trainees.
Director General of NDE, Silas Ali Agara, stated this in a presentation at the recent 2nd Annual Conference of the Labour Correspondents’ Association of Nigeria (LACAN) held in Abuja.
According to Agara, NDE is implementing four core youth empowerment programme namely: Vocational Skills Development (VSD), Small Scale Enterprises (SSE), Rural Employment Promotion (REP) and Special Pubic Works (SPW) Schemes.
The DG said that presently, about 41,307 youths are undergoing training in the second phase of the RHEl across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said: “The Directorate in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda trained over 33,886 Nigerians youths in various demand-driven skills and resettled 4,683 trainees with loans and Starter-Packs to assist with business start-up capital and equipment/tools under the first phase of the RHEI between the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2024”.
Agara said that, presently, about 41,307 youths are undergoing training in the 2nd phase of the RHEl across the 36 states of the federation and FCT.
He listed some of the skill development programmes being undertaken by NDE to include – Basic National Open Apprenticeship Schemes (BOAS), Advanced National Open, Apprenticeship Schemes (ANOAS), Community based training scheme (CBTS), School-On-Wheels (SOW)
Other programmes implemented under the SSE schemes for the youth includes: Start Your Own Business (SYOB), Basic Business Training (BBT) and Women Empowerment Branch (WEB).
Agara also said that NDE is organizing training schemes mainly in agriculture, covering Fish farming, Production Training scheme, Poultry Production Training Scheme, Organic Agricultural Training Scheme, Environmental Beautification Training scheme, amongst many others.
