The purpose of the centre is to check youth’s restiveness

By Ossai Rita

The administrator of the Multi-purpose Youth Training Centre Mrs. Okonye Peace Oreva, located at Egbokodo-Itsekiri shed more light on the Multi-purpose centre during an interview with newsmen recently in her office at the training centre.

Excerpt

When did you resume office?

Am barely two months here, middle of this year, about April I was posted to this centre. I was previously the administrator of Delta State Commissioner of division centre, Asaba. They called me here to take-over from the administrator that was here before, on my arrival the centre was about to take off training after about two years break.

Talking about Egbokodo-Itsekiri Multi-purpose Youth Training Centre, I want to say that the centre was actually coordinated by the Delta State Government and NNPC, they both collaborated to establish these centre in 2012 in order to help check youth’s restiveness, in the area, it was obvious that from 2008 there was much youth restiveness in the state and the United Nation Development Agency, UNDA, decided to intervene by building institution centre that will help check youth restiveness and that led to the establishment of this centre. These centres has a replica in Port-Harcourt, Bayelsa and Abuja and they thought the best place to establish it is Egbokodo-Itsekiri, because it is closer to the youths and it will help to access a lot of them that were into restiveness by engaging them

What kind of certificate do you award here?

Well before I talk about certificate let me talk about the training because a system must come up before a degree.

The training here is focused on skill acquisition programme, you know that recently skill acquisition is the main thing, an alternative to economic development of Nation because lot of our youths that graduated from various institution are unemployed especially on white collars jobs.

In view of this, the state government decided to establish institutions that will provide skill acquisition to help youths acquire skill in various vocations.

In this centre we have eleven different vocations such as: Wielding/Fabrication, Electrical/Installation, Appliance Maintenance, Carpentry/Joinery, Catering/Hotel Management, Tailoring/Fashion Design, Hair Dressing/Cosmetology, ICT, Motor Mechanic, Diesel Plant/ Maintenance, Decoration/Event Management, we also have general courses like Entrepreneurship training, mind cell change, like skills, we teach other courses like English Language and Mathematics to help the trainees have a good foundation in both domestic technical and Entrepreneurships skills.

This training last for a minimum of three months for domestic courses like Hairdressing and Cosmetology, Decoration and Event Management, while the other skills last for six months.

During this period of training, we expose the trainees to practical section that takes 80% of the training while 20% is theory, this opens it to everybody irrespective of their educational qualification, so that we can have manpower and more people to acquire skill, to develop our blue and white collar jobs.

It is interesting to note that we are using the NATEB molar and the NSQF Curriculum which is referred to the Nation Skill Qualification Framework. This curriculum provides trainees the opportunity to socialize in any skill of their choice and write their exams based on the skills they specialize in, after they have gone through the six months training we send them out for Industrial Training, IT, to enable them have a life experience of their skills areas.

The wielding trainees are sent to where they can learn how to transfer their skills into work, we also organize a formal exam for them and those that passed are be awarded the certificate of competence while we help them to get external examination NATEB and NSQF, so that they will have certificate for awarding body and technical bodies and whoever that passes through the centre will not come out with an empty qualification, NSQF is a worldwide recognized and as am talking to you right now they are completing accreditation process award and the regulatory bodies are in charge of the award.

So before these trainees will go through their six months training and three or six months IT, that accreditation would have been achieved, we will now award them and make the attestable for any corporation, organization and if they don’t want to work with any organization, they can also establish a business of their own with the help of the centre.

Do you have the manpower for all the skills you have mentioned?

Yes, we have the manpower because each department have two trainees who have all gone through what they called ‘Quality Assurance Training’, so their quality assurance training is tested.

What I meant by that is, we will make them focus on standardization, so they don’t just enter the class room and begin to teach the students and they make sure that what they are teaching them is up to need and requirement of the institution.

What are some of the challenges you met?

The first challenge is when you close an institution down and the facilities are not been used for some times and there is need to revive them, is like starting a new system, so we are trying to make sure that the areas that needs renovations will be renovated to ensure it is in good shape.

We will not succeed if we do not immediate dividend that will benefit the centre. Therefore we call on candidates, especially from corporates bodies, Local Government Areas, individuals, as am talking to you some local government are sponsoring like Ugheli North and Etiope East, some individuals are sponsoring, some group of friends are sponsoring some group of trainees. if we have more people like other local government chairmen are sponsoring people too, I think the issue of candidature will be a thing of the past once you have trainees that are ready to learn and are ready to make good use of the equipment that is available.

If you visit our workshop, you will see that the kind of equipment we have in the workshop can be compared to world class, so if we don’t have candidate that will use them it is useless. As it is now the next section, the kind of awareness that we are going to create have look at some population. We appeal to Government and people to come to our aid by bringing people and all that for support.

Before I go further, I want to commend Egbokodo- Itsekiri Community, because of their effort to secure the centre without vandalising the centre equipments during the period it was closed down. Kudos to them.

Are all the trainees Itsekiri or you have students from other tribes?

Yes, we have students all over Delta State and outside the state. We have students from Isoko North, that are here on their own without being sponsored by any organization, that was why I pointed out that apart from Ugheli North and Etiope East Local Government Areas that are sponsoring people, some private organization and some individuals are sponsoring people too.   

But it will be nice if all the Local Government Councils sponsor their youths, because our Governor, His Excellence, Sen. Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa has this as one of his cardinal agenda to create jobs through skills acquisition that led to the establishment of vocational centre in the state. Government has been funding this vocational centre to ensure students receive the needed training.

So if all the Local Governments can buy into his dream and sponsor their youths, I think a lot of them that are roaming about in the street now, will be off the street and before you know it they will be master of their own, having acquired skill in a vocational like this.

What does it cost to train a student here?

Well the highest fee to train a student here is forty thousand naira only (40,000.00) and that is for wielding and fabrication, although you know that wielding and fabrication are very expensive now, we provides some consumable items and the students does the same, so if you hold a maximum of sixty-seventy thousand naira, you have trained a wielder within six months. The other courses you have some twenty-five and thirty thousand naira depending on the areas and whatever the trainees pay they takes it home because it is their property, we don’t take it from them, for instance, if you are in tailoring department and you buy materials, we will show you how you can turn it to clothes then you take it home and show it to your benefactor, indirectly it is not causing you anything because they are yours. All we are interested is to teach you how to make the items.

Are you saying that the state government is funding this centre?

Yes, before it was closed down, it is not because it was not on but because it is time to yearn-up and the foreign bodies to feel out as you know transition takes lot of processes. So there was no fund at that time to keep up, but now as am talking to you the state government have provided funds. If they have not provided funds I won’t be sitting here, the fans and light won’t be on and the funds are steady that is why there is no noise. Everybody here is doing what he/she is expected because the State Government is funding the centre right now and they are doing it well.

Is the accommodation comfortable for the trainee and what is the charge?

The accommodation is presently is not comfortable for the trainee but under normal circumstances, it cannot accommodate all of them right now and a room is five thousand naira per month.

Are you people in future trying to get more accommodation?

If the government and Egbokodo-Itsekiri Community will provide land for us what stops us from expanding and creating more space for accommodation.

Are you planning to make it a degree awarding like ND, B.SC?

Let me explain something to you NSQF and Convocational training are two parallel line, they are two parallel form of training, if you focus on NSQF you can get up to the level of degree and if you focus on Convocation, you will come out too like a graduate. NSQF focus on the practical skills and are more practical aspect of training and convocational training which is theory and convocational aspect of education.

Acquiring a degree in the centre is like going back to first education that has landed this Nation into an importing instead of exporting and that is what the state government is trying to work against.

The state government under the leadership of Sen. Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa wished that in the near future Delta State should be a hall of industrial activities in the Nation and the for-can thing to do is to establish skill divisional centre where national skill acquisition will be focused.

Now they have a graduation, we have from level 1-6 in NSQF presently right now this centre is qualified for training of 1-3 as the time we acquire all the skill training centre, we upgrade to level 1-6, so focusing on degree is better we come this way, this is not only National qualification worldwide as am talking to your right now, American is in it, China is in it, trinagal-Alibecon is in it and we want to be like them and for us to be like them is by focusing on skills.

I will advise the youths to acquire skills, I that am talking to you, am skilled and am a Decorator, Event Manager, caterer and a tailor, so even if the state government ask me to go, I will not go hungry but rather fall back to my skills and begin to develop myself.

I happens to learn of a medical doctor who learnt a skill on herb tea, when he was posted to a community where he need an instrument to treat an ailment in the community, he couldn’t get the money from government or the people in the community, so he started producing the herb tea and after sometime, he was able to arrange the money to buy the instrument. If he didn’t have a skill he won’t have gotten the money.

The beautiful thing is that NSQF is generalized activities and their test is only a mental test and that is why you see that most of our youths are not performing well. Many of them are supposed to have skills.

In NSQF, they test your ability and if you have the skill of handwriting and it opens door of specialization in the economic and mass production of items.

I want to clock your mind back to the production of an office pin. It has a divided process and everybody that is involves in office pin production specializes in each aspects. So when you train people according to specification, you are developing and building up people, so that is why this centre is not dream of awarding a degree but we are dreaming of getting to the highest.

Where can they use the certificate given to them in this centre?

Depending on the level of specialization you could be employed by an organization or any establishment that suits your area of specialization, for instance in this area, we have oil company, if you aa good Wielder, Motor Mechanic, Caterer, Hair Dressing and many others, the oil company will employ you. So if you are good in Tailoring, you could be producing some of their official outfit, if you are good in Hair Dressing, you could set up a saloon close to the oil company where the staff will be coming to maintain their hair both male and female. So the company employs base on their area of specialization or when you establish your own outfit.

What about when you don’t have the fund to start up a business and you have the ability to do something, what do you think should be done?

Yes, it is here am going to give the Governor of Delta State, Thumb-Up for establishing the view of job and wealth creation such that whoever that graduates from this institution, the job creation have a programme where they gets data from us, anyone that passes through these centre will have a data bonus from us.

After they have graduated and through with the data base, they will be invited for competence test and anyone who passes the competence test, the Delta State Government will give them data.

Are you saying that anybody that graduates from this centre, the state government will give them data?

Yes, the state government will give them data and they will setup a test which is called the competence test, so it is only the trainee that will decide their faith, if you pass the test or fail it. So if they pass, their starter pack is there for them, they will also be giving money for shop rent for a year.

What is your advice to everybody especially Delta?

This is the time for Delta to grab this opportunity of skills development, so that we will be in the fore-front of industrial development at large, as am talking to you right now Delta State is the first to handout form of skill acquisition training since these has been provided by the state government why not key into it and we are crying there is no job.

One-day the oil we depend on will lose its value and what do we fall back to? We fall back to our skill, those that don’t have skills should try to develop in this area.