Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has launched NECAPreneur, an online training platform for the unemployed seeking to become entrepreneurs.
The scheme also targets undergraduates who will want to become job creators rather than job seekers upon graduation from tertiary institutions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently put youth unemployment in Nigeria at over 80 percent even as businesses struggling to stay afloat continue to downsize thereby further worsening the unemployment situation in the country.
The NECAPreneur, according to the employers’ organisation, is therefore, designed to help youth develop and sharpen their entrepreneurial skills to venture into the world of business instead of endless wait for paid employment.
Segun Oshinowo, director general of NECA alongside other partners, at the unveiling the scheme in Lagos said it is an e-solution that provides easy-to-access opportunity for Nigerian youths to upscale their skills. The goal is to get them shift away from chasing after white collar jobs.
“The initiative in is tandem with NECA’s mandate to influence economic and socio-labour policies to create an army of gainfully employed youths who in turn would be employers of labour and ultimately add to national development. The target is getting youths to be wealth creators rather than job seekers”. He lamented a situation where the teeming youth population roam the streets and available as ready tools for social ills.
“The NECAPreneur is particularly designed for youths and undergraduates in Nigeria and the whole idea is to create an environment where we can get our undergraduates to think entrepreneurship before they leave the university, while those who have left and are unable to get a job would be motivated to embrace entrepreneurship as well,” Oshinowo said.
“As representative of employers, we have the statistics and the jobs are simply not there, that is the truth. Demand for jobs has by far outstripped the supply for jobs and this is going to continue for a while and we would want to enjoin our youths to take their destinies in their hands by embracing entrepreneurship”.
Hannah Oyebanjo, of Imagine Business Services, the technical partner said the e-learning programme comes in 3 stages – Basic, Intermediate and Advance. It is delivered through video tutorial and texts structured into engaging modules. Oyebanjo said the curriculum is tested, practical and culturally relevant with the support of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Nigeria has an estimated population of 185 million people. Over 50 percent of this figure are persons below 30 years with over 13 percent of this unemployed.
JOSHUA BASSEY
