By Bukola Adewumi
Abuja – The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) on Thursday in Abuja said it had started training 600 unemployed youths in vocational skills.
The NDE Director General, Malam Nasiru Muhammad, disclosed this at the orientation and induction for 550 Basic National Open Apprenticeship Skills (BNOAS) and 50 Advance National Open Apprenticeship Skills (ANOAS) Trainees.
The programme was under the Vocational Skills Development (VSD) Department of the NDE was held at the training NDE Centre in Kuduru, Bwari Area Council.
He said that the training was to reduce poverty through productive activities, self-reliance and wealth creation.
He said that the VSD Programme was one of the Directorate’s job creations primarily to provide productive and marketable skills to unemployed youths, men and women in the country.
According to her, the skills acquisition intervention has remained a veritable tool in combating mass unemployment since the inception of the NDE in 1987.
Nyadar said that the main objective of the VSD was to provide technical and vocational training for the unemployed, unskilled youths who may be school dropouts and other unemployed persons.
“The NDE is situating its operations within the mainstream of the economic restructuring of the current administration and milestone of relevant reform policies.
“It is in this quest for NDE to live up to its mandate of creating jobs for all, that the management has graciously approved these elaborate training nationwide.”
He said the orientation and induction was organised to enable selected participants have pre-knowledge of what the training and what would be expected of them in the course of the training.
He added that the three months training would be precluded by an attachment to well established Master Trainers in the informal sector.
“The skill sets for the 150 B-NOAS trainees will include: Fashion Designing, Electrical Installation, welding, Facial-up, Hair Dressing, Catering, Interior Decoration and Computer appreciation respectively.
“While that of A-NOAS will be Advanced Computer Training and Catering,” she said.
She however urged participants to maximize the opportunity and make use of it.
One of the participants, Justina Ezurike, commended NDE for the initiative and promised to make good use of the opportunity.
Leo Abang, also a participant appealed to youths to make use of the initiative, saying it would go a long way in fighting poverty.