OGSG partners German agency to empower 5,000 Ogun youths with technical skills

As part of measures to meaningfully engage youths and women through skills acquisition and vocational training, Ogun state government has partnered German Embassy on human capital development.

The partnership arrangement, according to Bimbo Ashiru, commissioner for commerce and industry, was to ensure that 5,000 unemployed youths and women are trained and empowered with skills acquisition such as construction, building service, automotive engineering, business studies, beauty and hairdressing, hospitality and catering, land and animals, travel and tourism, among other skills that offer growing firms in the state technical expertise.

He added that trainees would be engaged in batches for a six-month training and intensive coaching on technical and vocational engagements for which the trainees would be awarded London City and Guilds Certificates in addition to internships in various countries across Europe as well as start-up funds which attracts seven percent interest rate.

Speaking at the admission of first batch of 500 trainees drawn across 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas in the State held in Abeokuta recently, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State said government placed more much emphasis on technical and industrial trainings with a view to feeding ever increasing manufacturing and service-providing industries domiciled in the state. He said doing that would create job opportunities, wealth for individual trainees and generate revenue for the government.

Amosun said it had dawn on the Nigerians and Nigeria government that vocational training and skills acquisition were major elements on human capital development that could create wealth and much needed employment opportunities for teeming graduate.

He added that the programme was intended to run in two locations across the State in addition to the place of pilot phase at the Technology Incubation Centre in Onijanganjangan in Abeokuta, saying government was ever ready to provide single-digit loan for all the successful trainees as start-up funds to finance any area of interest to the trainees and participants.

Earlier, Bernhard Schlagheck, German Ambassador to Nigeria, noted that the training was initiated to improve on the employability of the Nigerian youths in the labour market through solid vocational and technical skills, explaining that various relevant firms were already waiting for the trainees in Europe to work, even if the trainees chose not to work in manufacturing and service-providing firms in the country.

Schlagheck, who was joined by Cliff Ogbede, project co-ordinator of Foreign Trade and Investment Services Africa (FTAISA), an economic initiative under German Embassy, added that the programme would not only empower the trainees in terms of skills acquisition and vocational training but would also expose the participants to the best world practice in terms of technology and entrepreneurship.

RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta