By CALEB AYANSINA
ABUJA – MINISTER of Youth Development, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, yesterday, revealed that the sum of N1.2 billion has been appropriated for Youth Employment Programme, YEP, in the 2012 budget, targeting 36, 000 youths for vocational training and supportive loan.
The Minister, who was speaking during a ministerial platform in Abuja, noted that government has recruited service providers from the private sector to provide training platforms for YEP beneficiaries.
“Progarmme coordinators have been selected from the private sector to establish the baselines for the YEP trainings. The ongoing implementation process targets 36, 000 youths who will undergo employability/work readiness and vocational training and then given job placement with business support and credit”. Abdullahi said.
Giving the breakdown of the programme, the Minister continued, “YEP is an integrated intervention. However, it will follow a sliding scale model, with 80% of beneficiaries moving to vocational training, 50% to placement and 20% receiving business support/credit”.
Abdullahi maintained that his ministry has deployed the sum of N200 million made available to it by the Millennium Development Goals, MDG, towards enhancing youth capacity in agriculture, in addition to about 100 Nigerian youths that will benefit from United Nation training programme next year.
“We are facilitating Nigeria’s participation in the Junior Professional Officers Programme, JPO-P, of the United Nation. $18 million has been earmarked for this in the 2013 budget for the training of 100 Nigerian youths to acquire hands-on experiences and employment opportunities in international organizations”. The minister noted.
He further noted that although they have recorded progress concerning the skill acquisition centres across the federation, the ministry is facing some challenges such as “insufficient and late release of fund, inappropriate selection of youth participants for training programmes by the states, little or no access to micro-credit facilities for the trained youth” among others.
According to him, the problem faced by the country is not lack of employment for the youth but lack of skills, explaining that giving skills to young people without regard to support to translate it into job is like ‘accumulation of frustration” for them.
Abdullahi said past initiatives of government to solve youth unemployment failed to yield positive result, because they were not focused on youth but applied as general intervention for job creation.
“We are repositioning the ministry as a facilitator and a coordinator on youth development, rather than as service providers”. He said.
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