By Shedrack Frank
Yenagoa – The Bayelsa Government has promised to invest more in technical and ICT education to ensure students are trained in skills and artisanship before their graduation to solve the problem of unemployment in the state.
Speaking during the one-day youth summit, with the theme: ‘Transforming Education’ the state Commissioner for Youth Development, Mr Udengs Eradiri, said that with such investment the young people would get themselves busy after graduation than waiting for government jobs.
He said: “We are talking about the need to change the educational curriculum in this part of the world to meet the challenges of today.
“We cannot be in the same Eze goes to school kind of education. We should begin to change our curriculum to a technical one because that’s where the world is going to now.
“People are talking about artificial intelligence, people are talking about ICT and our educational curriculum is still stagnant like what was attainable in the sixties or fifties.
“So, when we talk about education and young people gather like this, that is where we brainstorm on the need for modification of the educational curriculum in the country.
“This is so as to prepare young people for the challenges ahead.
“The way the world is going, very soon machines will take over every aspect of the economy, and even for those machines, people will write those programmes.”
The commissioner asked if the nation was prepared for that task.
“What kind of primary education are we giving to our young ones? We must begin to ensure that young ones are ready to play with the gadgets of today.
“And if we the young people, want to make progress, then we must begin to effect policies that will determine where we are going to.
He noted that the nation’s economy was dwindling as a result of the corruption going on in the oil and gas sector.
According to him, agro business was key to sustaining the nation apart from oil adding “even at that, how do we tailor our policies towards agro business?
“That is why I suggest that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) should be changed to an Agricultural service Corps.
“So that if a student finishes from the university he is now channelled to Agro business and if he spends one year there, you can imagine the yield that will be coming out of his involvement,” he said.
(NAN)
