Abstract
As a way of tackling youth unemployment in Nigeria, the National Directorate of Employment provides capacity building in the form of vocational skills development for unemployed youths who lack skills in their areas of interest and are eager to acquire relevant skills. This paper examined the youths’ perceptions of the components or dimensions of capacity building imparted in them. A structured survey questionnaire was used in collecting data to ascertain the levels of capacity building among the participants, while descriptive statistics was employed in analyzing the data. Findings from the study revealed that a greater percentage of the sampled youth reported high and moderate levels of their capacity building- implying that the vocational skills development was a successful scheme. It is however recommended that constraints that impede the success of the scheme be addressed by policy makers to make the outcome of the skills training more successful.
Highlights
IntroductionThe statistics from the Manpower Board and the Federal Bureau of Statistics has it that Nigeria has a youth population of 80 million, representing 60% of the total population of the country; with 64 million of them unemployed, while 1.6 million are underemployed (Awogbenle & Iwuamadi, 2010)
While many participants responded highly and moderately, some reported a low level on the dimensions of capacity building
The study has demonstrated that capacity building and the informal sector can be a source of hope for the unemployed Nigerian youth through skills training as they have proved to be a huge investment in the youth who could not be absorbed in the scarce or unavailable government employment
Summary
The statistics from the Manpower Board and the Federal Bureau of Statistics has it that Nigeria has a youth population of 80 million, representing 60% of the total population of the country; with 64 million of them unemployed, while 1.6 million are underemployed (Awogbenle & Iwuamadi, 2010). Among the causes of youth unemployment in Nigeria are rural-urban migration, rural underemployment and urban unemployment, lack of employable skills, rapid population growth, and absence of vibrant manufacturing sector. While these facts may not have captured in totality the youth unemployment scenario in Nigeria, they point to the fact that the situation is a very critical one. Vocational skills development program equips youths with the human capital that let them avoid poverty and have a more fulfilling life. Investing such skills in them calls for involvement of all stakeholders. As Ojei (2010), the NDE coordinator explained, the training would empower the beneficiaries to become self-reliant; arguing that the youth could not continue to walk the streets looking for non-existent jobs; and that the training would lead to the creation of a new generation of self-employed youths who on their own would become employers of labor
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