Sanwo-Olu says youth empowerment integral to achieving developmental agenda

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has stated that youth empowerment, through skills acquisition, is crucial to achieving success of the administration’s policy on security and governance, a crucial pillar of the THEMES agenda.

Sanwo-Olu stated this during Lagos State Agency for Mass Education’s 2020/2021 Vocational Graduation Ceremony for an additional batch of 119 newly-graduated trainees of Odoragunsin and Addo Vocational Training Centres, held at St. Peter Primary School, Epe.

In a statement, yesterday, he expressed satisfaction at the high turnout of youths to learn one vocation or the other at the state’s vocational training centres, noting that the huge turnout is an indication that the future of the country is still bright despite the current security and economic challenges. 

The governor, represented at the event by his Special Adviser on Education, Tokunbo Wahab, said that the state government had approved the immediate upgrade of all the vocational training centres to world-class standards, saying that plans are in place to equip those centres with additional working tools to allow for expansion and more enrolment.

In his remark, the Executive Secretary, National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, Prof. Abba Abubakar Haladu, commended Sanwo-Olu for placing youths at the centre of various vocational and entrepreneurship skills development programmes. Haladu, who spoke through a Director in the Commission, Mrs. Kudirat Olufunke Lawal, noted that engaging youths in vocational training and, subsequently financial empowerment, is crucial to addressing youths’ restiveness and other social vices.
 
Earlier in her welcome address, the Director, Lagos State Agency for Mass Education, Mrs. Oluwakemi Kalesanwo, explained that 703 trainees graduated from the seven vocational training centres across the state.