The director-general of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, said the directorate recently commented a training for 1,000 unemployed Nigerian youths on solar and renewable energy.
Mallam Fikpo said the training started in December 2022 with beneficiaries carefully selected from all the states of the federation.
He went on to say that the initiative is part of the efforts of the Federal Government to reduce unemployment in the country and boost energy provision for the economic growth of the nation.
The DG added that the participants are being trained in various classifications of renewable energy under the umbrella of solar energy.
They are to understand the concept of solar power, modes of solar panels production, systematic coatings necessary to improve performance of solar cells, defect detection methods for solar panels, solar reflectometry i.e. measuring solar reflectance and absorbance on surfaces to help mitigate climate change and others.
According to Mallam Fikpo, the participants’ training is tailored towards operational energy at moderate cost.
Giving more details on the Solar Energy Training (SET), the Director of Special Public Works (SPW), which is the department supervising the training exercise, Mrs Olaomi Roseline Silvia, said those recruited for the training exercise are unemployed graduates of higher institutions and diploma holders with technical background.
According to her, the participants are currently on a week theoretical cum practical intensive training after which they will be attached to major renewable energy firms in the country for more training and on-the-job and marketing experiences for a three-month period.
She said “The government has also made provision for good monthly stipends to encourage the participants.”
Meanwhile, NDE, poised to enhance productivity and good service delivery in jobs creation and employment generation for 2023, has organised capacity building seminars and workshops for various cadres of its staff.
The NDE DG explained that the objective of the various workshops is to equip the NDE staffers with the requisite knowledge of modern administration and to imbue them with the right work ethics and attitude for efficient service delivery.
According to him, as the apex job creation agency of the Federal Government, NDE relates to many publics, especially several classes of the unemployed in the country who are to be given new orientation on sustainable jobs and viable options of employment.
“Our personnel therefore have to be up to date in principles, standards, policies and guidelines that provide capabilities necessary for effective service delivery,” Mallam Fikpo said.
In one of the workshops organised in conjunction with Rikadez Nigeria Limited for the Directorate’s human resources personnel, key papers that were presented included, Code of Ethics by Oyoyo Kate, Expectations from Public Servants by Audu Faisal Ibrahim, Discipline in the Civil Service by Mrs Folarin Dupeola, and Essentials of Time Management by Stella Chukwuma.
The resource persons charged the participants to deploy all resources necessary, both physically and psychologically, to their duty so as to be good service providers in counselling, reorientation and presentations of viable job options which borders on skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development for self employment and reliance.
Teaching the participants on time management skills, the Head of Department for Human Resources, Mrs Stella Chukwuma, dwelt on the importance of prioritising, delegation, decision making, goal setting, multitasking, and scheduling.
She said that good and prompt service delivery requires strategic thinking out of the box.
In a similar development, the Directorate also organised a workshop for key officers at the grassroots from the 36 states across the nation on ways to form NDE beneficiaries into cooperative societies in order to ease ways of sourcing external funds for business expansion.
Resource persons were brought from the Federal Department of Cooperatives to train NDE officers on the modality and benefits of the initiative.
According to the Director-General of the NDE, the Directorate will, in 2023, perfect all avenues to encourage skills acquisition, entrepreneurship development and self-employment in Nigeria.
Induction course was also organised for some of the newly employed staff of the Directorate. Highlight of the event was the distribution of certificates of attendance to the participants.
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