Lagos Moves To Tackle Unemployment

With a population of 18 million inhabitants, Lagos, no doubt, is the most populous city in Africa and by 2015, third largest mega city in the world after Tokyo and Bombay. With such a staggering population, the issue of youth unemployment readily comes to fore. It is reported that 70 per cent of this population is below the age of 35 years, which is the active youth population.

Social ills such as thuggery, hooliganism, robbery and other vices rear their ugly head as a result of unemployment. For a government aspiring to positively impact on the citizenry, addressing these social ills is key to giving hope to such a large population. Thus, fashioning out a blueprint to generate employment opportunities for the teeming youths is certainly the best bet for a visionary government.

It is sad to see thousands of school leavers and tertiary institution graduates roaming the streets of Lagos aimlessly searching for jobs that have remained elusive. Frustration has led many to join the bad eggs in the society.

The Lagos State government, under the leadership of Governor Babatunde Fashola, faced with youth unemployment, decided to take the bull by the horns by launching the School Leavers Modern Apprenticeship, SL-MATP, and the Graduate Vocational Employability Skills Training Programmes, GV-ESTP. The two programmes are under the purview of the Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board, LASTVEB.

The SL-MATP is designed to provide both work-based on the job training in industries and accredited workshops and college-based instructions in the state technical colleges so that Lagos youths can have the full range of skills and knowledge for a highly skilled occupation.

According to the Executive Secretary, LASTVEB, Mr. Olawumi Gasper, the programme is also “designed to provide employability and vocational training for graduate apprentices, create employment, produce skilled and competent young people to support the local content act, conserve the nation’s foreign exchange and actualise the state government’s vision.

“It is also designed to place a premium on business and enterprise skills, spiced with competence-based vocational training, and is proposed to offer a direct and specific re-training and re-orientation interventions required to assist our current generation of graduates after completing their formal education to compete globally in today’s world of work.”

Gasper said the school leavers enrolled for SL-MATP would spend between nine months and two years, depending on desired trade and occupation while the graduates that enrolled for GV-ESTP, combining vocational trainings with employability skills, would successfully complete the programme in nine months.

For successful implementation, LASTVEB has forged collaboration with industry partners, training providers and workshops and garages. The partners include Highbury College as a Strategic Partner and Department for International Development under GEMS 2, providing support to and capacity development for a Planning, Monitoring and Quality Assurance, PMQA, system for SL-MATP, among others.

Some of the vocational programmes to be undertaken include welding, carpentry and joinery; automotive mechatronics; refrigeration and industrial air-conditioning; domestic and industrial plumbing; care giving and house-keeping; hair dressing and beauty therapy; clothing and dress making; block-laying, concreting and tiling; software applications design and development; computer animation and modeling; electronics and appliances repairs; electrical maintenance repairs and services and industrial instrumentation and automation.

On Wednesday, 17 April, 2012, the Lagos State government launched the job creating programme for youths at the NECA building, Central Business District, Ikeja, Lagos, southwest Nigeria.

Chairman of Odu’a Educational Trust Fund, Sen. Olabiyi Durojaiye at the event commended the effort of the state government in putting together such an innovative programme aimed at developing human capacity and manpower in the state. He said the initiative, if well-implemented, would indeed address the dearth of artisans and technicians, which he said, had been facing Nigeria in the past decades.

Durojaiye therefore expressed hope in the programme, which he believes, “will definitely help the state develop technical skills in relevant areas of specialty; reduce crime rate and stem the trend of unemployment in the country. We can save N960 billion from nationals of Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin Republic and West African countries, who are currently working in Nigeria as artisans and technicians.

Mr. Aboi Joseph, Director of Programme, National Board of Technical Education, NBTE, who gave a synopsis of the scheme, said developing manpower for national development “does not depend on the state government alone. It is also a responsibility of the federal government. It is the responsibility of state governments. It is the responsibility of local governments. In this light, all levels of government need to work together to develop human capacity and manpower.”

He explained different steps, which the state government had taken “to achieve its objective of unemployment reduction. First, the industry partners will be the organisation that will be in charge of assessment. Second, LASTVEB has directed all the colleges and polytechnics to develop their individual curricula, and failing to develop the curricula will attract sanctions; perhaps such programme will not be accredited.”

Lagos Commissioner for Education, Olayinka Oladunjoye said what the state government “is doing today is to secure our future. If we fail to do it today, we may have challenges building our houses or doing some technical works in our offices and departments. So, these schemes are tailored to address critical socio-economic issues that may arise in the future.”

The Registrar, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, Engr. Felix Atume, lamented that the nation relied on Ghana, Togolese for artisans to work for them, saying that “it is sad that a country of 150 million looks for artisans outside. As engineers, if we don’t have artisans to implement our designs, there will be problem; we are losing billions of naira on this annually.

“Technical colleges have collapsed in the country. We are happy that the Lagos State government is not only looking at the problem but bringing solution to it. Lagos is one of the states promoting the practice of engineering in the country. Any nation that does not promote technical education and engineering will never move forward. We call on all other states to establish at least, one technical college.”

The Principal, Highbury College, Portsmouth, London, England, Mrs Stella Mbubaegbu decried the high unemployment rate in Nigeria, saying this might jeopardize the future of the nation. She added that with students given the impetus to acquire skills, more jobs would be created and the nation would move forward.

“We are going to partner with the government to move the nation forward. We need different skills to transform, to hang the doors and build the roads. The world runs on skills; it is time to end the unhelpful snub on vocational education. The skills people acquire belong to them; they can live on the skills and create jobs for others.

“Lagos State is once again showing the path for skill transformation. You have the political will and investment to make this work. This is a unique opportunity to narrow the gap between the world of work and learning,” she stated.

Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, who represented the governor said state government understood the need to invest in the future by engaging the youths, adding that government was proud to pioneer the initiative of providing skills training and employability programme for school leavers and graduates in the state.

Adefilure specifically reflected on how the menace of social vices evolved, pointing out lack of parental attention, grave economic situation and poor policy response as defining factors. And the consequence, according to her, has been so grave on the nation’s economy and society alike. “A number of young people have been pushed to the streets while those who managed to obtain higher degrees could not get jobs,” she said.

She said the trend “has become a threat for the innocent residents with the rate of crime soaring before this administration came on board. It has also become a real challenge for this administration to respond accordingly. This trend attracts our attention because we have a responsibility to prevent crime and protect, and one way to achieve it is to engage the idle hands and pull unemployed youths from the streets.”

The manner she addressed the gathering gave a clearer picture of what any nation stands to lose if the menace of unemployment and crime remained unaddressed through policy initiatives. Orelope-Adefulire said the menace was no longer acceptable to the Fashola administration, saying “this is why this administration has put these programmes in place to breathe life into those who are not gainfully unemployed.”

“Failing to respond is grave; the young people go into crime, drugs and social vices when they are on the streets. We have created these opportunities to arrest the trend. It is therefore our divine call to develop our children. It is our constitutional duty to respond to their needs accordingly. If we fail to develop the young people today, they will definitely be irresponsible tomorrow. We must act fast,” she explained.

She noted that the GV-ESTP is designed to actualize the state government’s vision of job creation, poverty alleviation and wealth generation as employability and vocational training would be provided for graduates in the state to produce skilled and competent young people to support the local content act and helps save the billions of naira spent on importation of skilled force.

The deputy governor added that the SL-MATP was part of the strategies of government to complement the efforts of the private sector in the production of high quality technical skills acceptable to industries in the state, saying that the Fashola administration remained committed to the development of the future generation in the state.

Adefulire added that no investment would be too much in providing the enabling skills and vocation for the benefit of the youths. “In the next four years, more than 20,000 youths will be trained at 12 different centres across the state,” she stated.

She also disclosed that government had concluded plans to have the training carried out at the state technical colleges and also through accredited training providers and Authorized Training Workshops (ATWS) and Industry Partners that would be accredited for engagement to provide both vocational and entrepreneurship training and hand-on practical sessions respectively across the five divisions of the states. “We have the support and partnership of different industries to enable our youths have the hands-on experience of the skills they have acquired, while on the part of the government, we will provide relief allowances for the trainees during the apprenticeship training,” said stated.

The deputy governor enjoined youths in the state to make good use of the opportunity both programmes provided, adding that trainees would be assessed only on competence and that if successful, such trainee would earn a Vocational Qualification in the relevant trade/occupation and other relevant certifications, which confirmed the skills and the knowledge gained as required by the employers.

The highlight of the launch was the inauguration of the Industry Advisory Team which consists of eminent personalities from the private sector, skill acquisition centres, as well as the representative of government.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga