July 02, (THEWILL) — The Ogun State Government has unveiled a skill qualification board for the National Skills Qualifications Certificate as part of efforts to encourage vocational and technical training in skills development.
This was made possible with joint efforts of the Ogun State Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in conjunction with the Ogun State Skills Fund and Ogun State Skills Qualifications.
Speaking during a sensitisation meeting with stakeholders in the education sector, the State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof Abayomi Arigbabu, stressed that the state is the first and only state in Nigeria to be granted licence by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to operate as a National Skills Qualifications (NSQ) Awarding Body.
Arigbabu explained that NSQ was a national and international acceptable certificate that gives the recipient opportunity to get employment anywhere in world without stress, noting that the Dapo Abiodun-led administration had also established three integrated job centres and work hubs in each of the three senatorial districts in the state.
“It is a new dawn in Ogun State, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology now having the capacity to train people on digital literacy. We have also opened job centres where people can come and get equipment to use for job efficiency and quality work delivery”, he said.
The Commissioner divulged that the state government had rebranded the apprenticeship programme in the state in which government pays for the training, graduation and stipends to the trainees, an attempt to reduce unemployment rate and eradicate poverty among the citizens of the state.
He also reeled out the government’s achievement in training over 42,000 hand on skills acquisition, business development and digital literacy, such as masonry, garment making, carpentry, welding, hospitality and catering, cosmetology, information and communication multimedia, cyber security, data analysis and many more with start up kits distributed to them.
The Chairman, Ogun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Suraj Adekunbi, said education without skills is not complete, and thanked the government for putting the programme together to assist job seekers, urging the participants to take maximum advantage of the training in order to become successful in life.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mrs Oluwatosin Oloko, stated that for people to be employable, they needed required skills, hence the various vocational and technical programmes organised by the government to help them acquire necessary skills.
The skills specialist, Ogun State Skills Fund (OSF), Engr. Segun Fatoki, said the OSF programmes were designed to solve and identify challenges in Nigeria.
Fatoki mentioned the challenges to include high poverty rate, underemployment, high rate of unemployment, increasing crime rate, among others.
