Formal education is not the only solution to unemployment – Sunday Dare

Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, has advised the country to explore entrepreneurship and acquisition of vocational skills as a means to ending the country’s unemployment woes. 

Nigeria is presently battling a 33% unemployment per the last statistics published by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. 

Speaking while delivering a speech at an event on Wednesday, Dare further advised that the youth take advantage of the digital skills and entrepreneurship platforms created by the Federal Government.  

The event is titled, “Digital Literacy: A panacea for youth unemployment,” at the luncheon of the Government College Ibadan Old Boys Association. 

Dare said, “The solution to Nigeria’s youth unemployment does not only lie in formal education, but also in entrepreneurship, semi-formal and vocational education which is being encouraged in more attractive ways by the Federal Government.

“Under President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria is changing the fundamentals of youth development by emphasising on training into enterprise, and investing directly in youth-owned businesses and ideas.” 

“The Federal Government is passionate about the progress of the youth, at all levels and positions. We know the issues of unemployment are deep, and so we are working to be a step ahead of these challenges. Our solution does not lie in formal education alone, this is why we are encouraging the youth to engage entrepreneurship.” 

“To achieve this, we initiated a soft loan program named the National Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) to give a leap and serve as a spring board to our youths. I encourage the youths to apply themselves to the process and opportunities that abound around them, which will definitely make things better.” 

“Equally, we have the Work Experience Program (WEP) for the graduates to gain cognate work experience from relevant firms, both private and public. This will give them a better head start in their job search.”