The management of Castingcrown Company (3C) has set machinery in motion to build the skill sets of at least 10, 0000 undergrads and young professionals across multiple disciplines in 20 selected universities in the country.
Giving this hint was Dr. Gbolahan Pearl Oyelakin; he spoke at the train-the-trainer programme for staff of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), in Lagos, at the weekend.
Justifying the need for the skill acquisition and training, Oyelakin, who himself is a United Nations certified project manager and sustainability expert, said there is a dearth of project management experts in the country, which is a critical skillset inevitable in the 21st century at the world at large.
According to him, Casting Crown Company in conjunction with University of Lagos Faculty of Engineering presents a Train-the-trainer programme for staff of the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Sciences.
This is a critical step planned towards the actualization of empowering 10,000 students in selected Nigerian universities with project management skills, Green Building EDGE certification and sustainability management skills and building information modeling skills for the next five years, he said.
“We have a vision and that’s to empower 10,000 students and young professionals in the next five years. That’s our target. We want to empower them with project management skills, building information modeling skills and also sustainability tools.”
Pressed further, Oyelakin said, “The reason for that is we discovered that in the professional industry, most of the students, when they come out to practice as young professionals, usually don’t have what it takes to solve problems. I’m talking about wicked problems now. So right from when they’re on campus, it’s good for them to acquire skills that will enable them to be problem solvers in the industry. And we noticed that critical skills that they need to acquire for them to solve problems include project management and also building information modeling tools. And of course, because of the need for us to also push the agenda of the United Nations in mitigating the impact of climate change, that’s why we’re also including sustainability measures into it. And we have adopted the EDGE programme, you know, as a sustainability tool that we’re going to use to equip the students in orientating them towards environmental behaviors that they need to acquire when they’re practicing.
“We have mapped out 20 universities and Unilag is going to be the first here in Nigeria. So we’re going to work. And what that means is we have a quota of 2,500 for each of these universities, you know, scaled up to the actual amount that we’re looking at for us to be able to impact the students. And what that means is in the next five years, we’re going to have a new breed of equipped and industry-made, ready-made professionals, young professionals that are going to disrupt the way things are done in the industry and facilitate project success and ensure new streams of value that will be delivered in the industry.”
Expatiating, Oyelakin who said revealed in one of four faculties adept with EDGE project in the entire country admitted that there is indeed a gap in the space.
“We have EDGE experts, and we have EDGE auditors, and we have EDGE faculties. So I said in the whole of Nigeria, at the level of faculty, we’re just only four and that is why I decided to move out with my team for us to be able to equip students because it’s better to catch them young. So EDGE has a programme for students, and that is the design for greater efficiency. So it’s also a pathway for them to grow when they leave campus and they start practicing and now become EDGE experts like me. So I want to catch them young right from campus before they move into the industry.”
On the modalities to adopt, he said, his team would be working with partners. “We’re going to be working with the Project Management Institute, for instance. We’re going to be working with the World Bank International Finance Corporation (IFC) because they own the program themselves. So we’re going to be working with some other BIM companies like Microsoft, Oracle. So we are speaking out to reach, we’re going to reach out to these organisations to partner with us, Microsoft, to partner with us for us to be able to equip these people. So yes, we are open to support, but this is going to be delivered to the student free of charge while we prepare them for the exam.”
Speaking at separate interviews, the duo of Profs Modupe Moronke-Omirin, Dean of Environmental Sciences, and Samson Adeosun, Dean Faculty of Engineering, both in the University of Lagos, acknowledged that building the skillsets of students and lecturers alike was of necessity in order to make them globally competitive.
Firing the first salvo, Prof. Omirin said, “We talk about being a future-ready university, training our students to also have the necessary skills and the capacity to compete out there in the world out there. So the training we’ve had sort of opens our vista to see all the opportunities that are out there. And I’m very impressed by what Casting Crowns has done, because this is a very selfless and extremely progressive effort on their part to bring to us what it would be useful for us to have to train our students excellently so that they can be really, really relevant in the world.
Echoing similar sentiments, Prof. Adeosun said the training is meant to inculcate the skill of project management. “Whatever project you are doing, you must have in mind that it should reduce climate effects. We know the issue of climate change is rampant now. The issue of climate impact has to do with what we do, the project we are doing, the effects on the environment and the consequences on the climate and people in the nation. So if you have that source key from project management, it will enhance your global competitiveness. You are not going to be a local person, you will become an international person.”
