Germany Pledges to Make More Young Nigerians Employable

• Germany Pledges to Make More Young Nigerians Employable

Mr. Stephen Awoyele, Project Coordinator for the German Dual Vocational Training Partnership with Nigeria, on Thursday expressed his government’s commitment to providing more technical training to young Nigerians, to enhance their employability.

Awoyele told newsmen in Lagos that the German Government had since 2012 been working with the Organised Private Sector and the Industrial Training Fund(ITF) in youth skills development.

The coordinator announced his government’s plan to expand the skills development programme to the organised private sector and other partners across Nigeria, this year, so that more young Nigerians would benefit from it.

“This programme has the objective of increasing the qualification and employability of young men and women in Nigeria.

“We have observed that there are a lot of skill gaps in many companies, as well as a dearth of skilled labour to fill these skill gaps.

“So, a lot of organisations are partnering with us in training apprentices to fill these gaps.

“We have so far trained about 350 trainers in the organised private sector and companies, as well as 265 apprentices for different organisations in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States,’’ he said.

Awoyele said that the success so far recorded by the programme in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States, was encouraging the German government and its partner organisations to expand it to other parts of Nigeria.

The German Government official said that the programme was already being sought for from other States, adding that his organisation would this year extend its training to more young Nigerians.

He said that the organisation would sustain its skills development programmes in industrial electronics, industrial mechanics, maintenance and technical facilities management, project management and office management, this year.

Awoyele said that the beneficiaries were immediately after their one year industrial training programmes, absorbed as full-time employees in the organisations.