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The Study On Skill Acquisition Programmes And Youth Empowerment
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Unemployment is one the developmental problems facing every developing
economy in the 21st century. Agu (2008) pointed out that there has been
an exponential increase in youth unemployment in the country. In his
words, youth unemployment in the country has caused serious problems
that past and successive administrations have not been able to find a
lasting solution. Although successive governments in Nigeria since
independence have implemented several programmes to address the problem
of youth unemployment and poverty, the assessment of the various
contributions of such programmes remains scanty compared to the huge
amount of resources committed to them (Egware, 1997). In the words of
Yakubu (2010), youth employment and poverty alleviation programmes
implemented in the last few decades have failed to confront the
multidimensionality of poverty as most of these programmes were unable
to respond to the exact needs of the poor. Programmes such as the NDE,
FEAP, Better Life Programme, NAPEP, NEEDS have all been affected by
common problems; such as: inadequate funding, project duplication, gross
inefficiency, poor coordination of programmes, corruption, lack of
transparency and accountability (Obadan, 2001).
At the state level,
the establishment of the Oyo State Youth Development centre was one of
the programmes implemented to tackle the unemployment situation in the
state. The establishment of the centre followed the guidelines of the
National Youth Policy that was established in 1968 with the objective of
training out-of-school youth graduates who are unemployed in various
vocational trades such as carpentry, fashion designing, hair dressing,
shoe-making etc, thereby enabling them inculcate an entrepreneurial
culture that would enable them to be self-dependent. Wale-Saka (2005) in
his evaluation of the Oyo State Youth Development Centre noted that,
several problems militated against the success of the scheme. He is of
the opinion that, the skill acquisition scheme faced challenges such as
problems of inadequate training materials, dearth of funding, poor
remuneration of tutors, insufficient number of tutors etc, all of which
contributed to its failure.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Although,
much has been written on the evolution of youth empowerment in Nigeria
(especially on youths in the Niger Delta), little is known concerning
youth empowerment in Oyo State visa- vis Taraba State Economic
Empowerment and Development Strategy. It is on the basis of the above
that this research seeks to fill the vacuum which is yet to receive the
attention of scholars in the field of youth empowerment studies This
obvious critical skill gaps inhibits the development of youths and the
entire development of the nation More than half of the Nigerian
populations are under the age of 30 according to the National Population
Commission (2001
Therefore it can be asserted that the economy of
Nigerian is a youth economy. Expectedly, today's youth will become in a
short decade tomorrow's parents. Leader, labour force and armies.
However, the Nigerian youths are said to be confronted with poverty,
unemployment, urbanization, lack of capacity and skills needed to move
the economy forward Poverty which is a force for HIV/AIDS is very
common, This is because the youth face unemployment and lack of
necessary productive skills to keep body and soul together This reality
leaves them without any meaningful means of sustainable livelihood. To
make ends meet, they simply inuulge m prostituion both malc and lemale),
Wale-Saka
(2005) in his evaluation of the ovo State Youth Development Centre
noted that several problems militated against the success of the scheme
He is of the opinion that, the skill acquisition scheme faced challenges
such as problems of inadequate training materials, dearth of funding,
poor remuneration of tutors, insufficient number of tutors etc, all of
which contributed to failure in light of this, therefore, this study was
aimed at how youth empowerment could
be enhanced through various skill acquisition programme that youth unemployment can be eliminated
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