N-Power, a Federal Government initiative meant to recruit 500,000 graduates into the teaching profession, has come under severe pressure because the portal designed to enable applicants apply online has been overwhelmed by traffic.
The newly launched Jobs portal N-Power.gov.ng has recorded 403,528 successful registrations since it opened for submissions on Sunday, June 12, 2016, according to Afolabi Imoukhede, senior special assistant to the President on job creation.
BusinessDay reporter’s repeated attempts to register on the N-Power portal by 10:12am, yesterday proved abortive, as the website remained inaccessible, as experts say heavy traffic to the portal has overwhelmed it. Although the website has since been restored, experts believe the recruitment exercise may be endangered by poor internet infrastructure.
A two-year paid volunteering programme, the 500,000 graduates under the N-Power Corps programme will get computing devices that will contain information necessary for their specific engagement, as well as information for their continuous training and development. Participants will provide teaching, instructional, and advisory solutions in four key areas: N-Power Agro, N-Power Health, N-Power Teach and N-Power Community Education.
Other components of the N-Power initiative include: N-Power Knowledge, which will train 25,000 Nigerians in technology, and N-Power Build, which will train another 75,000 in building services, construction, utilities, hospitality and catering, automotive vocation, aluminium and gas services.
Similarly, the Federal Government is mulling over training of 2,000 youths as part of its broader strategy to boost tourism and create jobs for its teeming youth.
The tourism sector, which contributes N1.56 billion and 1.7 percent to the GDP in 2014, is one of the priority sectors enlisted to aid the diversification policy of the present administration.
Breakdown of the Nigerian Films Corporation’s budget shows that N300 million has been approved for training of over 2,000 youths at various locations across the country.
The trainings, as stipulated in the copy of the budget sources by our correspondent, will take place in Kano, Ekiti, Benue, Plateau, Enugu, Lagos and Osun at yet to be fixed dates.
According to the assented budget for Nigerian Film Corporation, the sum of N82,858,684 was approved for accommodation of male and female students; N15,728,000 for equipping of hostel (male and female); N6,549,283 for construction/completion of archive building structure and furnishing (administrative section); N70 million for procurement of equipment for trainees, logistic resources persons in Apa/Agatu Federal Constituency and N200 million for entrepreneurship film training programme in Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency, Kano State.
