The Institute of Science and Technology, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, has launched some innovative, practical job creation schemes designed to tackle acute youth unemployment and insecurity in Africa.
The schemes are TeachFirst Solutions (TFS), Public-Private Partnership Job Creation Solutions (PPPJCS), and Youth Engagement and Entrepreneurial Training Solutions (YEETS).
TFS is aimed at African governments experiencing unemployment among their university graduates in maths, science and technology fields, while the PPPJCS is aimed at both governments and private sector organisations and is, particularly, useful for addressing unemployment among educated or literate young people. The latter scheme is also designed to provide high technical skills to young people as well as aid workplace productivity. The third scheme, YEETS, is aimed at governments experiencing high unemployment among their artisans or low skill people. It is particularly useful in dealing with challenges pose by youth violence, kidnapping and insecurity.
In all the three schemes, the Centre for Youth Employment and Job Creation at the Institute of Science and Technology will design and write-up the scheme and train people who are to implement them. Each scheme, which comes with built-in review, monitoring, research and evaluation – all designed to guarantee results and assure quality, guarantees jobs and training places for the unemployed young persons.
On the innovations, James Ogunleye, professor of innovation and enterprise and Deputy Rector at the Institute, said: “A significant reason for the current high rate of youth joblessness in Africa is a virtual absence of interactions between education and the labour markets. Be that as it may, what is missing between the youth and employment is innovation”. According to him: “the Institute of Science and Technology solutions are both strategies to prevent and actions to address youth unemployment, kidnapping, gang violence and general insecurity anywhere in Africa”.
The Institute of Science and Technology is a new interdisciplinary research-led school dedicated to applied research and education in science and technology.
Its main objective is to empower our generation and contribute to nation-building by helping to uplift the progress in business, science and technology and to undertake cutting-edge research that will inform policy and development in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large.