TheCable

SkillNG, a skill development and talent management company, says it will organise free training sessions on digital skills for 1,000 Nigerian youths.

Ibrahim Oredola, chief executive officer of SkillNG, announced this at a media briefing in Ibadan, Oyo state capital, on Thursday.

SkillNG is a company which leverages technology to help young people learn digital and employment readiness skills through a peer-to-peer learning network.

According to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in March, Nigeria’s unemployment rate hit a record high at 33.3 percent in fourth quarter (Q4) 2020 from 27.1 recorded in second quarter (Q2) 2020.

On Tuesday, the house of representatives asked President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency on unemployment in the country.

Speaking on the training, Oredola said the organisation has partnered with reputable businesses to empower youths in celebration of #WorldYouthSkillsDay 2021.

He said selected candidates will have an opportunity to obtain digital skills, which will lead to provision of jobs and internship placement opportunities.

“In line with our mission of empowering and upskilling the African youth workforce, we have partnered with reputable organisations and businesses to launch Project #Skill1000 in celebration of #WorldYouthSkillsDay 2021,” he said.

“The Project #Skill1000 is aimed at helping 1,000 young people get skilled, get job/internship placement and geometrically increase their chances of having a sustainable sources of livelihood derived from the digital economy.

“The training is divided into core digital skills and soft skills training. All classes are highly practical, tutor-led and carried out onsite and online via Zoom and Google Classroom.”

Oredola noted that beneficiaries will be given regular assignments and capstone projects to achieve necessary immersion in the programme.

He said after the digital skills training, selected candidates will go through compulsory soft skills and basic professional etiquette skills training, to ensure their complete fitness in the workplace.

“After this training, we start posting them for jobs, internships and mentorship placements with our partners and volunteer mentors,” he said.

“We will also help those who want to explore freelancing path to set up their workflows on popular freelancing platforms.

“The core objective is that after the project, we plan to have at least 70 percent success rate of young people who have not only acquired significant digital and soft skills, but who have also meaningfully kickstarted their career on the right path and with the right resources and guidance.

“It is also part of our plan that this project contributes to the re-generation of the economy, post-COVID, in the education and training sector by giving another 1,000 young people access to upskilling their digital skills in a more efficient way.”

The SKILLNG boss added that selected candidates will have access to a range of 10 skills, including product design, web design, graphics design, social media marketing, copywriting, SEO and content creation, data analysis, google workspace, customer service, software testing and brand identity design.

“We believe that we can successfully train 100 persons per category and this can be achieved within the set period of time since it will be a blended class,” Oredola said.

“So, by training these 1,000 young people for free, we will be giving them a better chance at securing paid employment. Not just that, they will also have the right skill to kickstart their freelancing career in case they can’t find traditional jobs, and these skills will also be useful in one way or the other for those who are or want to be entrepreneurs in running their ventures.”

Interested applicants are to apply here on or before August 15 .