allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Stakeholders Roll Out Programmes for Youths' Empowerment (Page 1 of 1)

Stakeholders in public and private sectors are pooling resources together in order to ensure an appropriate investment in capacity, capability and competence development of Nigerian youths, especially in the area of science and technology.

The arrowhead of these collaborative efforts is a non-governmental organisation called Vision 2020: Youth Empowerment And Restoration Initiative (YERI), which has the vision of making Nigeria the hub of oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Guinea and one of the top 20 countries by the year 2020.

The strategy for achieving this noble goal by YERI, which is an initiative of Lonadek Oil and Gas Consultants, is through the exposure to youths of various educational programmes so as to stem the deterioration of the nation's educational system and its poor value system which have, over the years, resulted in frustrating youths and graduates, making them incapable of competing globally.

According to Project Consultant of YERI, Dr. (Mrs) Ibilola Amao, the initiative is for the promotion of science and technology-biased professional and vocational development in youths, employing career counselling and awareness programmes for science and technology courses, so that the youths can channel their energies into rewarding careers and for increasing Nigerian content in the zero-tolerant multi-billion dollar oil and gas industries where only 15% of the income is being earned by Nigerians because of their ignorance and lack of requisite skills and competencies.

This abysmall failure of Nigerians to fully avail themselves the sundry opportunities being dangled at them by the oil and gas industries in their country arose from the poor quality of education being delivered by the nation's educational institutions with facilities that are nothing to write home about.

Dr Amao says of the nation's educational system: "Science and technology teachers are usually unemployed graduates.

Creative learning, logical reasoning, problem definition, development of scientific inventions as solutions are non existent in the curricula of our colleges and higher learning institutions. Field trips and site visits are rarely built into the curriculum."

She added: "Functional laboratories, workshops, pilot plants, state-of-the-art facilities and IT systems in world-class environments are lacking in our educational environment. Our educational system is no longer producing the quantity of graduates nor the quality (type of competencies) who have been strategically developed to manage and optimise the various natural resources of Nigeria. The products (of our schools) and the problems we are encountering in our various industries is a result of our poor value system."

In an attempt to confront these problems besetting the country's educational system, Vision 2020: YERI has actually commenced the implementation of alternative programmes in science, engineering, technology and entrepreneurship which the nation's army of unemployed graduates, graduates and youths urgently need.

For instance, between May 2006 and November 2007, the youth empowerment-focused organised various workshops for secondary school students and undergraduates of higher educational institutions where they were showed films on various key job positions that require the application of skills developed through education in mathematics, science, engineering and technology.

At these workshops, where industry professionals delivered presentations relating to activities within the oil and gas industry.

students were taught the variety of career paths available in the industry and the pre-requisites qualifications for these jobs

Also, guidance counsellors learnt about the best way to support their students as they prepare for science and technology focused careers while science teachers also learnt about the academic and practical requirements for these jobs which enable them to fine tune their teaching to meet global needs.

In addition, the private sector-inspired Vision 2020 organises essay competitions, career retreats, facility visits, mentoring and coaching with future plans to set-up scholarship programmes.

Another workshop has been planned for this month when two eminent Nigerians in the persons of Dr. Rilwan Lukman and Dr. Phillip Emeagwali will be honoured as worthy role models for mathematics, science and technology in the categories of Oil and Gas and Information Technology respectively.

Sensitizing both public and private sectors on the need to build bridges between stakeholders for the purpose of achieving national transformation, Ibilola Amao, who bagged her Ph.D in Computer-Aided-Design and Draughting from the Bradford University, United Kingdom, at the age of 23 further tasks stakeholders to make conscious efforts to catch-them-young, provide mind stimulating training and exposure for youths, provide sponsorship or grants for the best, provide conducive environment for educating the youths in mathematics and the sciences and develop and motivate our best graduates in geosciences to teach on full time or part-time basis.

She also stressed the need to form strategic partnerships between educational institutions, government and stakeholders in the oil and gas industry and to introduce team and leadership development initiatives, adding that there must be total investment in youths development whose inherent characteristics such as strength, energy, imagination, faith, vigor, vitality, creativity, optimism, mobility and insight will make such investments worthwhile.

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