From Paul Orude, Bauchi
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Bauchi State has flagged off a transformation training scheme for 50 unemployed youth in the state.
This was disclosed by Lawan Yaya, the state Coordinator of NDE, in Bauchi on Wednesday, during the commencement of the training.
Yaya said the exercise would last for a period of three to 18 months.
He said that the training was carried out under the Vocational Skills Department (VSD) of the NDE.
He said the participants were selected across the 20 Local Government Areas of the state.
He explained that the Director General of NDE, Malam Abubakar Fikpo, felt that two months or less was not enough to train people in vocational skills, so came up with this training which ranged from the period of three to 18 months.
“The Director General feels that it is not enough training people in Vocational skills for two months, there is still the need for us to enlarge the training depending on the actual time span for that particular training,” he said.
“This is because if you say you want to learn tailoring in three months, honestly and sincerely speaking, you can not learn or acquire what is needed for utmost dexterity.
“That’s why this training is ranging from three to 18 months depending on the need of the training in time and that is why we have this new training scheme tagged youth transformation and training scheme”
Yaya further listed some of the vocations the participants would be trained on include: tailoring, carpentry, auto-mechanic, autotronics, shoe and bag making, among others
He added that if the participants were to seek training from private individuals, 95 per cent of them won’t be able to pay for it as they are now being engaged by NDE free of charge.
The NDE coordinator urged the participants to be up and doing and ensure they abide by the rules and regulations of the training.
“They should put extra efforts to see that within this period, they have actually learned something so that at the end of the day, they would be employers of labour,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of other participants, Isa Abdullahi, appreciated the federal government and NDE for the gesture.
Abdullahi promised to attend the training with undivided attention to acquire more skills and become an employer of labour.