The Federal Government has earmarked N10 billion for the N-Build component of the N-Power programme designed to impact skills and enhance the employability of Nigerians from 18 years to 35 years.

Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation, disclosed this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ meeting held at the State House Auditorium on Thursday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Federal Government, in 2016, launched the N-Power programme designed to help young Nigerians to acquire and develop life-long skills.

Imoukhuede said that the goal of the N-Build programme was to increase the skill competency and employability of Nigerian youths and improve their incomes.

He said that the essence of the stakeholders’ meeting was to ensure that all the stakeholders were on the ‘same page’.

“We need to harmonise for a sustainable technical and vocational programme such as the N-Build programme that focuses on skills for entrepreneurship and job-competency.

“We must ensure that we have our partners who are the employers; we must ensure that we have councils who partner with us – Council for Registered Builders, Council for Automotive Design, Council for Tourism Professionals in the Hospitality Industry.

“We must also ensure that our training centre heads, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment which is the oversight ministry for this programme, are on same page with us.

“We have to come together to be able to review the success of the formal launch which the vice-president did in the month of May,’’ he said.

He noted that the training was rolled out on March 1 and rounded off in May with the first set.

According to him, there are currently 10,000 trainees who have been trained and doing apprenticeship across the country.

Imoukhuede said that it was important to review the first training
before the next batch would be rolled out,

“We have this session to review the successes, take improvement, learn the lessons.

“We should ask ourselves: What are the things we can do better? A lot of our youths want to gain skill competencies.

“For the graduate component of N-Power where we have mobilised 500,000 —300,000 since December 2016, and 200,000 since Aug. 1 this year – they enrolled in for a two-year paid volunteer programme which is an apprenticeship programme.

“Then, we have the non-graduate component in two broad areas, which focus on vocational training and apprenticeship.

“We have the construction, automobile and the hospitality industry represented; they are the three key industries we are targeting for now.

“In addition, we have N-Power Knowledge which further deals with technology — hardware repair and maintenance training, software development training and creative -where we train on graphics, animation, illustration among others,’’ he said.

The special assistant said that apart from the training, there was an investment of N250, 000 per trainee by the Federal Government.

He said that the investment comprised tools and consumables provided according to the trade each trainee signed for.

Imoukhuede said that training consumables were also provided for each of the N250 centres in addition to tuition fee, training manuals and log books for every trainee.

Earlier, Mr Nsika Okon, Chief Admin Officer, Job Creation Unit, Presidency, said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration deserved commendation for its massive empowerment programmes. (NAN)

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