Worried by the growing rate of unemployment among youths, especially graduates of higher institutions in the country, Lagos State Government has commenced its youths empowerment programmes, targeted at final year students and those in penultimate classes in higher Institutions in the state, with the aim of making the 8000 participants entrepreneurs and boosting their employment opportunities.

The 8000 penultimate and final year students were drawn from all the higher institutions in the state and are now undergoing entrepreneurship and employability skills training programme, sponsored by the State Government under its Jobs Initiative Lagos (JIL).

JIL,according to Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Education, Barrister Tokunbo Wahab, is aimed at preparing participants for immediate entry into the workforce as employees and employers of labour, by equipping them with the new market-alignedknowledge, soft skills, business tools, and a mindset re-orientation that will make them suitable and qualify for their chosen careers in the technology-driven world of work.
Wahab, represented at the opening ceremony by Sanwo-Olu’s Senior Special Assistant

on Tertiary Education, Youths and Students Relations, Mr. Omotayo Sanya-Olu, explained that the selected 8000 participants wouldbe trained in such core areas as Soft Skills, Resume Writing, Work Etiquettes, Presentation and Pitching, Corporate E-mail Drafting, Negotiations Skills, Interviewing Techniques, Microsoft Suites, Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, MicrosoftOutlook andEntrepreneurship Skills development.

Wahab further explained that the state government came up with the initiative to up-skill youths in the state, by equippingthem with all necessary skills that would not only make them employable andhighly competitive in the competitive global market but also make their services highly essential for national economic growth, thusremain relevant in the 21st-century globaldigital economy.

He said: “… We haveequally designed an all-inclusive entrepreneurship programme that will teach participants how to launch and run a successful new business of their own, with an in-depth knowledge of business development strategies and risk factors that will help them to stabilisein thecompetitive global markets.”

Wahab, who appealed to participants to justify the government huge investment in the project, by maximising benefits of the training through active participation, attentiveness and total co-operation with their facilitators, urged them toshun any form of evil vices that could undermine the government’s good intentions
Earlier in her remarks, Assistant Project Coordinator, LoftInc Allied Partners Limited, the organisation collaborating with the state government on the training programme, Mrs. Olatokunbo Aiyenimelo, disclosed that the state government in partnership with her organisation had earlier trained about 28000 youths in the first phase of the scheme, adding that professionals and experts in different areas were on ground to take participants through variousskillsdevelopment programmes.
While commending the Lagos government for the initiative, the Chairman, University of Lagos Students Union Council, Adesanya Sodeeq Olawale, also a beneficiary, said the programme would help to develop their potential skills, while preparing them for the challenges required for good jobs and entrepreneurship skills.(The Guardian)