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From Joe Effiong, Uyo
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has commenced training 50 unemployed graduates in the 2021 Start Your Own Business (SYOB) programme in Akwa Ibom State.
The programme, designed to equip graduates of tertiary institutions willing to be self-employed with techniques of business startup, to become young entrepreneurs, is also to ensure improvement in the well-being of unemployed graduates.
Flagging off the training programme in Uyo on Tuesday, the Director General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Malam Abubakar Fikpo, said the move was in line with the policies of the present administration towards revamping the nation’s economy.
Fikpo, who was represented by the Akwa Ibom State Coordinator of NDE, Mr Promise Ekah, gave the assurance that the SYOB training has been structured to meet the present-day realities as resource persons have been carefully selected to ensure efficient delivery.
‘This training platform was basically designed to equip graduates of tertiary institutions who are willing to be self-employed with techniques of business startup to become young entrepreneurs, who must not be previous beneficiaries of any of the NDE programmes. This is to ensure a wider spread of opportunities for other unemployed graduates to benefit from the directorate’s programmes,’ he said.
‘The intervention of government by introducing these programmes is to ensure improvement in the well-being of unemployed graduates. I, therefore, urge you to reciprocate government gestures by engaging resources at your disposal for sustainable productivity.
‘The NDE is working in tandem with the policies of the present administration toward revamping the economy through vocational, agricultural and entrepreneurial skills amongst others, which has a large labour absorption capacity while reducing unemployment and poverty to the barest minimum in the country.’
He listed responsibilities of the job creation programme of the directorate to include Vocational Skills Development (VSD), Special Public Works (SPW), Small Scale Enterprise (SSE) and Rural Employment Promotion (REP) and assured that NDE has used these to provide massive employment and open to every qualified unemployed person.
In his welcome address, the State Coordinator, Mr Promise Ekah, whose address was presented by Mrs Udeme Udoh of the Department of Small Scale Enterprise (SSE), said the laudable programmes of NDE had continued to yield the desired result and cut across all classes of unemployed persons in Nigeria.
He implored the beneficiaries to undergo the training with commitment and dedication even as he appealed to public-spirited individuals, groups and agencies to partner with the NDE in the task of tackling the hydra-headed phenomenon of unemployment in the state.
