The World Bank has disclosed that a total of $10 million has been earmarked to train Nigerian youths both undergraduates and those out of school on skill acquisition to address the high rate of unemployment in the country.
The World Bank Education Specialist, Dr Mistura Rufai, who disclosed this on Monday during a Two-Day Innovation Grant Facilities (IGF) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/Contract Signing and Implementation Workshop with private sectors.
The workshop was organised by the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) project of the Federal Ministry of Education.
She said the facility was designed to support complimenting agencies that are promoting innovations in the training of digital skills. This facility is aimed at supporting critical intervention projects in the skills development ecosystem such that we develop digital skills across the country.
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“The training is expected to stand between both beginners, intermediate to advanced level. As we speak at the national level we have about 10,000 youths currently being trained. We also have about 78 grantees and we hope that in about a year, we will have over 50,000 grantees being trained,” she said.
Speaking, the National Project Coordinator, IDEAS, Mrs Blessing Ogwu, said the programme was created to give every Nigerian child the opportunity to learn and acquire skills.
“The essence of this project is focusing on the skill acquisition to reduce unemployment in Nigeria. We don’t need anyone to tell us that we have so many youth who are unemployed. Most of our youths are unemployed and the only way is for the youth to acquire our skills,” she said.
She charged the grantees to be committed to the initiative toward reducing the number of unemployed youths in the country.
Also, the IGF Consultant, Prof. Ndem Ayara explained that the project, scheduled to be implemented within one year, was done under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
He said: “In the partnership, the public sector will support the consortium to implement the project up to 80 per cent, the private sector partner will provide 20 per cent. Of the 20 per cent by the private sector they will contribute 10 per cent in kind and the other 10 per cent in cash.
“It is the cash component of the private sector contribution that is expected to be the counterpart funding by private sector.”
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