Minister
of State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi, said yesterday that
government has no data of the unemployed persons and those who are
employed.
The Minister said the government plans
to bring all skill acquisition centres in several ministries under one
roof for maximum utilisation.
Speaking at the APC secretariat, Ocholi
said the government plans to employ many untrained graduates and train
them to teach in secondary schools
He explained that the Teacher
Conversation Programme is aimed at mopping up unemployed graduates, but
have degrees in relevant areas and can teach Secondary School Students.
The Minister decried the lack of
statistical data of the unemployed, saying: “Before we got to where we
are, there was no data anywhere. There is no data of the unemployed. In
fact there is no data of the employed. It is a bad situation”.
He said the ministry has started the
process of gathering data of both the unemployed and the employed
Nigerians saying: “As l talk with you, there are experts working on the
software on how to capture the details of the unemployed and the
employed.
“And for those who are employed, there
are many who are in the wrong places. There are many who are in working
and they are not enjoying the job and want to have jobs better than what
they are doing.
“There is a firm that we have sourced
for, working with the National Directorate of Employment, (NDE) right
now. The NDE has done a pilot scheme in Bwari and they have an office in
Lobito crescent right now working in preparation for a mega scale.
“What it takes to get that data ready is
part of our work. Our work does not begin when the data comes out
because the data itself does not employ people.
“So we have decided to identify how many
skill acquisition centres we have in this nation and the capacities of
each one. There are more than 76 of them. We have also discovered that
the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has a lot of skill centres in the
Niger Delta region which were built but do not have capable hands with
resources, with skills to be able to train. The Ministry of Agriculture
has several as well as the Ministry of Finance.
“So we have decided to do a memo to the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) for Mr. President to
galvanize all such centres and bring them into one fold. Then we can do
a planning on how many people each centre can take for the next three
months.
“We will look at what is the nature of
the skill that can be acquired within that period of time, what do we do
to sustain those people that will acquire the skill and when you
acquire those skills, what stipends can be paid to them to keep them in
the training so that while being trained you earn something. That will
bridge the gap between now and when they open their shop and begin to
employ labour”.
Nation
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