Mr Olushola Joseph, Fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM) has urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in the labour market.
Joseph who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday said this was necessary
because the 33.3 per cent rate of unemployment in the country was alarming, unprecedented and unacceptable.
Towards this end, he urged government to establish a National Institute and Centre for Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (NICSAED) as a matter of urgency.
Joseph said the approach should be based on Public Private Partnership model.
“The Government will need to partner with relevant organizations where we can achieve our desired goals.
“The strategy to be adopted should begin with the introduction into all our educational systems, institutions and schools’ curriculum, skills acquisition and entrepreneurship.
“This will enable young Nigerians to be practical in their approach to business issues.
“We need to research and come up with identifiable skills which will be incorporated into our current schools’ curriculum and plan our future operations around those skills.
“We would need to examine current school curriculum and encourage more of transferrable skills into the curriculum, from primary to tertiary level of education.
“We would need to invest hugely in Teacher Training Programmes in all layers of our School System – Primary, Secondary and Tertiary, with emphasis on science, technical, practical and vocational training programmes.
“We would need to partner with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies with a view to ensuring acceptability and conformity with their requirements.
“We would need to create a pool of entrepreneurs who will partner with the Centre.
“The objective is for them to act as mentors and coaches to the would – be young entrepreneurs through major intervention programmes like ‘The Apprentice’ Reality TV programme.
“Through this kind of programme, participants will showcase their leadership and technical skills and prepare for the world of work,” he explained.
Joseph said NICSAED would need to partner with major industries and individuals to ensure exposure of participants to various operations that would enhance their skills.
He noted that global entrepreneurs like of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, WhatsApp’s Jan Koun and Brian Acton started in very humble ways.
“These individuals have taken advantage of technology to meet the needs of many in the social media and online commercial space,” Joseph said.
He said the Centre needed to focus on skills that would benefit the attachés, such as, technical training, industrial training skills,practical sessions, and
entrepreneurial development skills.
“If the scheme is to be meaningful, reward and job placements must be seen by the entire society as justifiable, so as to encourage the desire to acquire skills by participants and would-be participants in subsequent schemes.
“The reward within the labour market must therefore be such that, it is attractive enough to attract the best brains and encourage aspirants to come into or acquire skills that are seen to provide them the desired job status within the society.
“The Centre will need to partner with the Federal Ministry of Labour and cascade to states’ Ministries of Labour; to come up with relevant reward systems for technically qualified personnel within the economy,” Joseph said.
He asserted that the human capital as a resource was the most valuable of all the assets that could be available to any nation.
“Out of all the resources be it money, machineries, land, the human capital stands out because it is the driver of all,” Joseph said.
He said it was most unfortunate that this same resource as important as it was, still remained the most neglected and more often than not relegated to the background in the country.
Joseph expressed the need for relevant authorities to accord proper attention to human resource as well as develop it to the point that the nation’s economy could achieve a high level of capacity utilization of its untapped and unharnessed potentials.
NAN reports that Joseph, an accomplished Human Resource Professional, is also the immediate past Chief Executive Officer, the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and; a Fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Training and Development.
