NBTE Gives Solution To Unemployment In Nigeria | READ IN FULL
The Executive Secretary, National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Professor Idris Muhammad Bugaje has disclosed that about 90million Nigerian youths are unemployed, of which some are graduates.
He said the high rate of unemployment is largely responsible for the security challenges bedeviling Northern Nigeria and the entire country as the almajiris accounts majority of the 10 million out-of-school children.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Science and Technology Forum (STF) held in Kaduna, Professor Bugaje expressed concerns that the rising state of unemployment is having a devastating effect on the youths and cited a group springing up in Kano called the anarchists with a resolve to destroy government properties
Bugaje however said that the only solution to the high unemployment rate is for the government to ensure that the unemployed youths acquire skills as cases of graduates with diplomas and degrees from various tertiary institution still roams the streets without jobs.
According to him, “As we speak the unemployment rates in the country are alarming because there are about 90 million unemployed youth in the country and the majority of them obtained their degrees but without jobs.
“Bangladesh supplies its youths with skills to countries like Saudi Arabia and others as artisans. At the end, they get foreign currency to take home. So why can’t we train our youth on skills acquisition.
“This is why we are mandating our tertiary institutions to ensure they offer training on Technical Vocational Education Training, TVET because we are hoping that by next year we will not offer accreditation to any course without the institutions offering courses on TVET.
“There is a group of unemployed youths springing up in Kano. They are called the anarchists. They say they have been abandoned by the government and therefore they would be destroying all government installations they come across. It is a small group for now, but we need to take action now before the group grows and become another serious security threat to the country,” he said.
The NBTE boss however urged the federal government to ensure that skill acquisition courses are incorporated and given priority in order to check mate the rising unemployment in the country.
The outgoing president of STF, Professor Ibrahim Mohammed-Dabo in his farewell speech said the Forum was established 20 years ago by patriotic Nigerian scientists and engineers of northern extraction for the purpose of promoting science and technology for the development of the Northern region.
