NDE Trains 150 Graduates In Solar Energy

The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has trained over 150 graduates in the design, harvesting, installation and maintenance of solar energy system in the country.

The graduates were recruited from Niger, Anambra and Adamawa states. The directorate lamented the large population of unemployed persons who possess no skill to compete in the shrinking employment market.

NDE director-general, Mallam Abubakar Mohammed,  disclosed this in a policy paper he presented in Enugu at a training conference organised for 50 members of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) serving in the south-east zone recently
The fiive-day workshop is on Rural Renewable Energy Project organised by the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) in collaboration with the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC).

Mallam Abubakar who was represented by the Enugu State Coordinator of NDE, Mr. Nnamdi Asomugha, noted that unemployment was one of the most serious social problems facing the nation and had been closely associated with increasing  level of crimes and other social vices in the country.

Quoting reports from the National Bureau of Statistic, the DG said that the rate of unemployment had reached 9.8 per cent in the urban sector and 5.2 percent  in the rural sector.

The NDE Chief Executive lamented that 70 per cent of unemployed youth in the country are unskilled school leavers and graduates.

“The Directorate over the years has come to the realisation that most of our graduates lack marketable and productive skills, which would enable them to start a business of their own when opportunities for wage employment seemed to be diminishing,” he said.

He added that the NDE was out to inculcate the spirit of entrepreneurship among Nigerian graduates, by upholding the dignity of productive labour among graduates by injecting youthful blood into micro, small and medium enterprises.

The NDE boss also said the directorate, as a deliberate policy, promoted self reliance by encouraging opportunities for broad-based economic development and, above all, employment generation for others through enterprise creation.