Over 400 youths from Imo State gathered at the Links Hotel, Owerri, on May 17 for a workshop on entrepreneurship. The workshop was part of the activities lined up for the formal inauguration of the Chuka Odom Foundation, a non-governmental organisation established by Chief Chuka Julius Odom, former Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE reports.
The presence of several prominent personalities from Imo State, among them the erudite scholar and social communicator, Professor Anya O. Anya, who led two other scholars, Professor Placid Njoku, former Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State and now President, the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science as well as Mr. Ugochukwu Omeogu, Principal Partner of Lagos-based Joseph Consulting and Marketing Limited, added colour to an event meant to give Imo youths a new sense of direction.
Coming against the backdrop of the clamour for the teeming unemployed Nigerian youths to drop their search for white collar jobs, and be job creators, the workshop presented the participants with a guideline for developing the right attitude towards self employment.
The workshop had a single mandate- to bridge the “skills gap,” which experts say, is principally responsible for the mass unemployment in the country and it succeeded in priming the youths to fill this gap. The former Minister, Chief Odom, who was one of the facilitators, gave a simple definition of “skills gap” to mean “the difference between skills required for a job or venture versus skills possessed by a prospective worker.” He said one of the major causes of the massive unemployment is that majority do not possess the skills needed for the jobs that are available.
Participants located the initial problem to be some youths considering the available jobs as “menial” and far below their academic attainments. The workshop agreed that whereas young university undergraduates in the Southeast find it difficult to learn skills for trades like auto mechanics and electrical, building and construction technology, electronic and electrical installations, barbing and hair salons, farming etc, these vocations remain quite popular in the area and skills on them in great demand.
One of the resource persons, Professor Njoku, put the matter in proper perspective when he posed some rhetorical questions before the youths: “What did you read in school? What are doing now? What would you like to do? What skills other than formal college certificate training do you have?” Professor Njoku pointed out that this mismatch of “possessed skills” and “required skills” has led to what he described as “wasting energy” among young people as a result of which there now exist pervasive social vices, human capital loss and economic losses.
Njoku then brought in the experiences of other countries on this matter and what they did to tackle the problem. In countries like Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, India and China, he told the audience,
the problem was tackled in three major ways: retuning the capacity of unemployed youths and under-employed adults; changing of school curricula from single academic model to dual academic model (academic and vocational models); guided enrolment in favour of the Dual Model. In Germany and Brazil, for example, the guided Dual Model was as follows: 30 per cent academic; 70 percent vocational and in Brazil 32 percent academic, 68 percent vocational.
Njoku pointed out that the result of the dual model was that while the Academic Mode led to 4 – 8 per cent unemployment, the vocational model led to as low as 0 – 1 per cent unemployment.
He said it may take governments in Nigeria some time to effect the necessary changes in the school curricula for these models to be in place.
In the meantime, the problem will continue to mount. This is where organisations like the Chuka Odom Foundation come in. According to the former Minister of State, the foundation intends to approach its programme for fighting mass unemployment through two major prongs, namely, graduate up-skilling and technical and vocational apprenticeship. Here, the organisation, according to Chief Odom, “shall adopt world class competency modelling” among which are the following steps: competency mapping, skills gap analysis, skills development and competency monitoring.
The ultimate objective of the intervention, Odom says, will be to prepare the youths for entrepreneurship and wealth creation. “We believe that entrepreneurship in itself can drive employment through innovation and creation of ventures that provide avenues for further
employment and birth of new industries…”, Odom told the participants.
Njoku agrees. “Skills training, entrepreneur development and management training for capacity re-tuning gives young people an alternative life sustaining career,” he told the audience. Njoku, who
supervised the Federal Governments’ “Out-of-School Boy Child Project,” in the Southeast and Southsouth a few years ago, then put it more succinctly before the youths who listened with rapt attention: “…It’s important for each of us to map out a personal survival strategy. The most viable and respectful survival strategy is to embrace entrepreneurship,” Njoku told the youths.
Management whizkid and motivational speaker, Ugochukwu Omeogu, himself a youth, gladdened the hearts of the participants a great deal with his presentation which, while harping on the imperatives of retuning, gave practical examples with his personal experiences.
He gave the rather hilarious story of his having to learn American phonetics, when he newly arrived in the U.S, in order to enhance his skill for job searching. In a rather touchy account, Ugochukwu who walks on crutches, told his fellow youths that with a degree from a Nigerian University, nobody gave him any chance of getting a job in the U.S, when there were hundreds of American-trained graduates competing with him. But by the time he brushed up his skills which included improving his diction, he bagged a job with one of the biggest banking groups in the U.S, J.P Morgan. He now told his fellow youths. “There is nothing impossible for you once you are determined”.
But, all that would not have sank into the minds of the youth if the main resource person and chairman of the occasion, Prof. Anya O. Anya had not first embarked on a brief orientation talk for the youth. The thrust of Anya’s talk was for the Imo youths to first situate the cultural context in which they seek to improve their lot.
Anya told the youths that they are first and foremost Igbo who are known for enterprise and indeed entrepreneurship.
He went down the memory lane to tell the youths that their parents were among the best in the country and that they should not allow the present economic and social conditions to detract them from living up to the ideals (of independence and enterprise) for which the Igbo are known.
It was not a one-sided affair, however. The young men and women, apart from paying great attention to the speakers, participated actively especially during the question and answer session. Perhaps to the surprise of their teachers, the youths exhibited a good grasp of the issues at hand. Though some also showed the usual traces of impatience that are known among young people, the general comportment was that of a crop of young men and women who are ready to be shown the way for bettering their lives. They were both eager and anxious. Naturally, some made reservations over government’s attitude to the issue of unemployment and general social decadence.
To this, Chief Odom advices that, “…this is no time to apportion blames or point accusing fingers. We have been doing that for a long time and nothing has changed…” It is easy to view Odom’s advice as one coming from an establishment man. But he has shown a difference. His initiative with the Chuka Odom Foundation, which focuses on eradicating unemployment among the youths in Imo state, may well be blazing a trail.
