By Felix Khanoba
The Federal Government says plans are underway to launch a school-to-work scheme to enable youths to become productive and self-employed.
The Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Hamid Bobboyi disclosed this on Thursday during a meeting with Commissioners of Education, Executive State and FCT Universal Basic Chairmen, Education Boards and UBEC on the School-to-Work Scheme.
Bobboyi in his keynote address, disclosed that the target group for the scheme are learners in the junior secondary schools.
He added that it will provide them the opportunity to detect early in life where their talents and potential lie, between academic pursuit and vocational skills development.
“It is expected that ultimately, generations of school leavers who are productive, self-employed, and contributing to the economic well-being of the country will emerge. The target group for the scheme are learners in the junior secondary schools.
“It will save the country the wastage being experienced after the junior secondary school education whereby those who are not academically inclined have no skills to develop for sustenance,” he said.
Explaining how the Scheme will be run, the UBEC Boss stated that it is structured to provide at least six months training, broken into two months per year of study in the junior secondary school.
“Within this period, the basics of a variety of trades will be taught, on which the learners can build after completing the junior secondary education. It is also designed to enable those students who may not be transiting to the senior secondary schools immediately to continue to specialise in their chosen trades until they are able to establish on their own,” he said.
Bobboyi, who further stated that the Scheme will be piloted in some centres in the states and FCT before scaling it up across the country, added that the vocational centres “are to be established and equipped to support training in a variety of trades in existing junior secondary schools”.
He called for the support of the Commissioners and other stakeholders to ensure the success of the implementation of the scheme.
“The role of the Federal Government is to support the efforts of these tiers of government. It is in view of this that we have invited the Hon. Commissioners of Education from across the country with the Executive Chairmen to deliberate on the Scheme so that at the end of the proceedings we would resolve to give our maximum cooperation for the achievement of the goal of the scheme, and for the States to ultimately take-ownership,” he said.
Also speaking, the Director Basic Education, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Folake Davies, stated that the Scheme which is inline with the road map policy of the ministry, is designed to provide youths with the requisite experience necessary to excel whenever they find themselves in the working environment.
The director who was represented by Rose Onoja stated that only collaborative effort from the Federal, State, and Local Government levels and active involvement from the private sector will make the implementation of the program successful.
“You will agree with me that skills acquisition is apt in preparing for the implementation of this school to work program that is revolving around the World today, and this is one of the deliverables from the DOTS initiative of the Federal Government with relevance which borders on skill acquisition together with the road map policy of the Ministry of Education which has provided the pillars that will support this empowerment.
“The school -to -work – scheme program is designed to create a path to prepare our youths from the latent potentials they possess to actually make them economically empowered for various opportunities available to various degrees in work related environments.
“It further supports the students classroom knowledge by gaining insights into various vocations, technical, industrial and business environments,” he said.
She commended UBEC for putting together the program geared towards a more inclusive and robust education system which is in line with the goal of the current administration initiative.
