The Federal Government has mapped out strategies aimed at ensuring the empowerment of no fewer than five million Nigerians with various artisanal skills annually.

The government has also embarked on training of 500 inmates in all the Correctional Custodial Centres across the country, saying that the beneficiaries will be granted N500,000 to start a business after the training.

Speaking with newsmen, Wednesday in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurial Education, Abiola Arogundade, said the initiative was aimed at cutting down the 133 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.

She explained that the initiative which entails collaboration with various countries, educational and financial institutions in the country would expose beneficiaries to the acquisition of artisanal skills that would not make them self relating but would be a source of earning the country the much sought after foreign exchange.

Mrs Arogundade explained that already her outfit have embarked on train no fewer than 500 inmates in each of the correctional centres spread across the country was in line with the objective.

According to her: “We’ve also started training in the correctional centres. We launched the scheme in Kuje. We took a few members from my office to the correctional centre to do an audit of the needs of the inmates. I’m happy to announce that we started conducting the assessment and auditing of the trainees. And I am happy to announce that every single person that we train there is also going to be certified.

“They will not be left behind. It’s the same curriculum that we have and we are partnering with global bodies to make sure that any skill you acquire in Nigeria is going to be recognised worldwide and we are happy to also announce that we have secured it for every single person in training.

“At the end of their prison term and our training, we give each of the beneficiaries N500,000 to set up their businesses so they don’t become a second-time offender at a correctional centre. This scheme is ongoing.

“So after Kuje Correctional Centre, we are moving to Suleja. We are going to try and duplicate this intervention in all our correctional centres across the country.

“There are two dimensions to the training, we will be training artisans to build and we are going to employ them. We are also training the beneficiaries. For example, if you are going to be a hairdresser, we train you on how to have the best skills in hairdressing.

“We empower you with the kiosk. Not only that, the kiosk will have three streams of income. You can use the kiosk for your main skill which in this case as I mentioned, will be hairdressing, you can use it for POS business and other ventures.

“So we are partnering with the bank. They will supply the POS and also you can use it to charge phones. We are using that as a multi-purpose intervention for three streams of income which we are launching today and we will be giving it out to the beneficiaries after we train and certify them.

“We also want to announce that we will be starting the programme which we call MYTV videos. Online we told people to send a one-minute video on what their skills are. Once you upload your video, we train you, we are happy to announce that we got over 10,000 entries and we are at the stage where we are picking 2000 people to go through the free training.

“Part of the curriculum of the free training for your assessment is to write a business plan. Those who write a good business plan will be granted N500,000 to continue and upscale their business.

“We are also working with the Bank for Industry. We are working on something called training for Industries. Like I said before, our methodology is backward integration, so we are working with the Bank of Industry, to work with the private sector and we are training people to make sure they have the right skills that the industries are looking for. So we have started that assessment as well.

“We have had meetings with different ambassadors. So what we are trying to do is to work with multinationals. Sometimes they complain about our citizens not having the skills.”

Speaking on the idea of introducing compulsory skill acquisition for Secondary School leavers, the presidential aide said: “I am in talks with the Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Polytechnic, Vocational and Technical Schools and we have being talking on how to introduce one skill for Senior Secondary School so that you come out with one skill and get even get certified. We started doing some research, so it’s something we think it’s important. It’s still work in progress.”

While revealing its collaborations with the Bank for Industry, BoI, Industrial Training Fund, IDF, Presidential Amnesty Program, PAP, National Board for Technical Education, NBTC, Private Sector and others, Arogundade revealed an ongoing program tagged “The unlock program” aimed at empowering youths and guiding them on creating commercial and sustainable businesses.

She said: “We told people to send a one-minute video on what their skills are. Once you upload your video, we train you, we are happy to announce that we got over 10,000 entries and we are at the stage where we are picking 2000 people to go through the free training.

“Part of the curriculum of the free training for your assessment is to write a business plan. Those who write a good business plan will be granted N500,000 to continue and upscale their business.”

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