As part efforts to reduce unemployment amongst school leavers in Nigeria, the Tranquil Youth Organisation of Nigeria, have tasked primary and secondary school students to identify and develop their skills while in school.
Speaking in a symposia career development workshop, on Thursday, in Alayi Secondary Commercial School, Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, the president/founder, Mr Jerry Shangotola, said the exercise was intended to connect quality education with sustainable development.
Shangotola, who was represented by the National Projects Manager of TYON, Mr Ajaja Oluwamuyiwa Olufemi, pointed out that young persons must have access to the knowledge, skills and ability that will enable them to advocate for freedom, peace, sustainable development, culture and change.
He added that the youth should be able to pressure political leaders to act in the same direction.
He stated that it will not be possible to equate and find solutions to the complex problems of peace, stability and development globally without the involvement of youth, the continent’s greatest asset.
Shangotola maintained that one of the best approaches to solving the deficit in the nation’s human capital quandary is through quality education and sustainable skills.
He stated,” It is not enough to send children to school, which by the way, is failing by all standards, we all must be deliberate about the environment of learning, quality of our curriculum and the orientation of our teachers.
“As we highlight and ponder on the nation’s challenges that is a consequence of unskilled human capital is directly tied to our unproductive education system.
“It is high time we also began to think how the sector can be more result-oriented, especially how children can be introduced to computer and the digital space in their formative education years. Elsewhere, their counterparts are already learning coding, programming and robotic sciences, and we say it is time for stakeholders’ action, especially in our public schools.”
Speaking with our correspondent, Olufemi explained that as part its vision, mission and objective, TYON had highlighted the first quarter project and intervention as to reach out to the youths in rural communities to know their challenges and proffer solutions to them.
He said, “We are teaching the students to develop themselves by discovering their skills, then they can work on it and identify areas they can bring solution to the challenges of the community.
“The students are encouraged to use their passion to identify a problem, which will turn to a community project, then look at the profit that can come from it, then it becomes a purpose for an individual person to pursue.
“We will also run a skill acquisition and empowerment program in the second quarter of out projects. We have advertised it for the youths in the rural area to apply so that we can train them in the skills of the choice including In ICT, graphics, sewing, trading and others. We also give resources to move on with after the training.”
The Abia State coordinator of TYON, Mr. Ndubuisi Okpara, said schools in the rural area were chosen for the exercises to encourage indigent student to go back to school.
According to him, “We are here to enlighten the students in primary and secondary schools, especially those students that their parents cannot afford to train properly on their own.
“We are giving them books, pens and career development workshop. Our skill acquisition programme is coming up later according to the president of our organisation.
“We believe that what we are doing will help more students to go back to school. It will reduce antisocial behaviours among our youths.
“We want the students to remain focused with their studies because more assistance will come their way.
The Principal of Alayi Secondary Commercial School, Mrs Uwakah Obioma, commended TYON for bringing the career symposium to the school.
She expressed hope that parents who labour so much to raise their children will be able to reap the benefits of their efforts when their children become gainfully employed.
She solicited the support of government and private individuals to supply the school with computers for teaching the students Information and Communication technology.
“Our computer studies is more of theoretical, because we do not have equality computers for teaching in this computer age.
“We are calling on government and private individuals and the host community to provide us with computers to move on with teaching and learning. We also need facilities for e-learning” she pleaded.
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