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Abia registers 300,000 unemployed persons for skills acquisition programme

By Gordi Udeajah, Umuahia
15 August 2017   |   4:10 am
The Abia State Agency For Mass Literacy has registered no fewer than 300,000 unemployed persons and 533 facilitators for its skills acquisition training programme.

The Abia State Agency For Mass Literacy has registered no fewer than 300,000 unemployed persons and 533 facilitators for its skills acquisition training programme.

The Executive Director of the Agency, Godfrey Akara, who made this known in Umuahia, said the Agency has 11 skills acquisition centers and that the retraining was done in each of the three senatorial zones of the state.

The programme, being put together by the state’s Adult and Non-Formal Education Agency is to refresh the trainees’ commitment to its programmes and expose them to new trends in teaching methods.

Akara listed the agency’s statutory mandate to include providing adult education to persons from 18 years and above who did not acquire formal education or did not complete their education but are still determined to get education.

The mandate, according to him, will also enable persons to acquire skills and extend mass education to citizens on government programmers and services.

He said the evening and weekend classes that were suspended before he became executive director, are being activated, adding that the agency’s activities were publicised in the media, churches, markets, traditional and community leaders.

Akara, who said the agency has worked closely with the National Mass Education Commission (NMEC), added that the relationship has led to the establishment of a Model Community Learning Center already commissioned at Akpuga in Obingwa council.

He added that steps are underway by NMEC to execute facilitators scheme by taking over 10 study centres to be run for about six months.

He urged the state government to be more committed and support the adult education programme, even as he advised the learners to take advantage of the opportunity to improve their education, stressing that the learning centres were located close to them as they are available in the three state prisons in Aba, Arochukwu and Umuahia.

Besides the funding challenge, which he said Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has taken steps to improve upon, Akara added that other challenges include non-appreciation and the poor attitude of some supervisors and learners to adult education.

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