By Eche Amos, PRO, Ministry of Youths and Sports Development.
As the world marks the “World Youth Skills Day” today, the Nasarawa State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Hon. Othman Bala Adam, has congratulated the youths of the State, calling on them to look beyond ‘academic certificate’ by indulging in entrepreneurship skills to overcome the myriads of challenges the world daily presents in order to become self-reliant.
The Commissioner made this known while interacting with a group of Youths under the aegis of “Concerned Toto Youths Forum,” who paid him a courtesy call at his office on Wednesday, 15th, 2020, in Lafia, to commemorate the ‘World Youth Skills Day.’
According to him, “I join the rest of the world to celebrate this special day of the youth. But With the current global realities, further worsened by the deadly global coronavirus pandemic, it becomes imperative for youths who constitute the larger percentage of the unemployed of the State to begin to think outside of the box, look beyond certificate and learn a skill to make ends meet, especially with the obvious difficulties to get white collar job.
“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a lot of loopholes in our society, and we cannot but accept that we have to expand on our area of speciality; we must move beyond our academic certificate to be able to remain valuable in the job market, because only by variety can you survive in the present and future worlds.
“Like any other group, the youths have not been left out of the ugly impacts of the novel coronavirus. Some are battling with job loss and a total lack of direction as a result of the devastating effects. However, the youths, too, have been prominent in their roles to help end the pandemic through various advocacies and action plans, which is quite commendable.
“The world today is looking for skilful people. In fact, some of the greatest people in the world today are those with skills and entrepreneurship mindset. When you have a skill or skills, you can be sure of some independence and can fend for yourself and probably those around you, come what may.”
He added that the Government of Nasarawa State under the leadership of Governor Abdullahi Sule, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, is doing everything within its corridors to empower youths of the State through various skills acquisition and empowerment programmes.
Othman Bala Adam revealed that the Ministry would soon unveil its portal to capture the unemployed youths of the State in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled areas with a view to empowering them as well as expose them to employers of labour in various areas.
“We have an army of growing unemployed youths in the State and this is a threat, if not addressed. In the next few weeks, our portal to capture data and job specializations of our unemployed youths will be launched in line with this administration’s commitment to create jobs, and empower our teeming youths. Hopefully, it would be the first of its kind in this part of the world.
“With the portal, Government and our partners will have a direction of where we are going and what we intend to achieve, either in the short term or long term basis.
“We have begun partnership discussions with some major employers of labour to help the Government meet the needs of our unemployed youths, and with these major players’ involvement, we can guarantee of reducing, drastically, the unemployment rate in our State”, Othman Bala assured.
The Commissioner explained that the State Government, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, would unveil its long-term youth empowerment programme blueprint in the nearest future to capture grey areas the administration of Governor Abdullahi Sule is focusing on to make youths of the State productive, self-reliant and contribute their quota to the growth and development of the State.
While assuring youths of the State that the Ministry is disposed to partnering with them and continuously creating an enabling environment in order for them to achieve their full potentials, the Commissioner charged youths of the State to learn, at least, a skill that will make them become relevant in a competitive world, urging them to always follow the right channels in carrying out their activities, even as he called on them to shun any form of vices.
He equally admonished them to strictly adhere to all the laid down guidelines against the spread of the COVID-19.
Although no programme was organised by the Nasarawa State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development to mark the day due to the Coronavirus epidemic, the 2020 World Youth Skills Day takes stock of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on skills development and explores how young people respond to the economic crisis.
This year’s celebration focuses on helping young people to be more resilient to changes caused by the current crisis and in the world of work in general.
