Edo State partners NECA to develop skills for job creation

As part of efforts to tackle the high rate of unemployment, the Edo State Government is collaborating with the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), to develop skills on job creation in the country.

Specifically, the initiative, through the NECA-ITF Technical Skills Development Project (TSDP), is aimed at improving and developing skills of the citizens of Edo State as well as create employment through Public Private Partnership.

Speaking when he paid a visit to the NECA House in Lagos, the Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, also sought the development of vocational and technical skills of students of the Benin Technical College. 

With the NECA-ITF TSDP initiative, he said the students would be trained to acquire more skills, and manpower development that will make them fit for employment after college.

He said his government focuses on giving the citizens the right skills, creating job opportunities and see how they could focus on opportunities to tackle their challenges.

He said: “With the opportunities that we see, if you are able to organise government properly, create an enabling environment, you will prosper, as our people are our greatest asset.

“To accelerate what we are doing, we want to specifically partner with you (NECA) to create jobs, build more technical colleges, workshops, among others. On the Benin Technical College, we believe you are going to train people for jobs, with the active partnership and collaboration.”

In his welcome address, the Director-General Designate, NECA, Timothy Olawale, said through that initiative, NECA, working in partnership with ITF, has demonstrated its selfless and positive disposition to economic growth and development in Nigeria.

While commending the Governor for the steps taken to tackle unemployment in the state, Olawale said the association, having identified high unemployment, and the dearth of middle level technical manpower as a bane of the economy, had to come up with a short term remedy to address the problem.

In a short presentation about the ITF- NECA initiative, Olawale said the project is a Public-Private Sector initiative to develop vocational and technical skills in Nigeria.

Its objectives, he said, are to provide employable skills to trainees to meet the middle-level manpower of industry needs in specific trade areas as well as prepare trainees for life-after-school by empowering them with entrepreneurial skills for job creation.

While the ITF provides funds for the brownfields and the greenfields, NECA will identify the brownfields and also solicit their support and participation.

The TSDP Project was established as part of a policy response to the outcome of a Joint Survey of Contemporary Manpower requirement in the Nigerian economy, which was presented to the public in March/April 2008.