A new employment effort has started in Kogi State to complement earlier ones, the aim being to thin down the ever bustling crowd of the jobless. The latest measure, a partnership with South Korea, is called Nigeria-Korea Friendship Institute of Vocational and Advanced Technology (NKFI). It is located in Lokoja, the state capital.
The project, in the works since 2013, has now taken off and will admit trainees in various skills.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Special Projects, Alfa Ibn Mustapha stressed the need for government to boost technological education as a means of reducing rising unemployment. He lamented the high rate of joblessnes, stressing that the only solution is to get the teeming youths to embrace vocational training.
Mustapha who commended Governor Idris Wada on the skill acquisition centre, said it will go a long way in preparing youths for self-sustenance. He said the National Board for Technical Education (NABTEB) will be involved in the certification of its students.
The centre has such departments as Automobile Engineering; Electrical/Electronics; Welding and Fabrication; and Internet Computer Technology, Metal Fabrication, Car Spraying and Diagnosis. Plumbing will be added later.
Okewu Aroma Gabriel, Principal of the institute said the NKFI will be a fee-paying school, but not beyond the reach of the poor who the government is out to cater to in the first place.
According to him, “The state government saw that there was every need to provide vocational skills for the people of Kogi State, not only the youths but also the employed and unemployed Kogites to be self-reliant and responsible to themselves and to the society at
large”.
He explained that funding is through Public Private Partnership (PPP), stating that the Governor has fully met all the obligations on the part of the state government in the form of its counterpart funding.
He further explained the extent of the involvement of the Korean government, through the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), which is responsible for International projects, part of which is the training of the 13 existing staff at the Daelin University College, South Korea.
He said, “The existing staff, both management and teaching instructors, were all trained in South Korea. There are eight instructors and five management staff. We were all trained at the Daelin University College in South Korea.
“The instructors first went on a three-month programme at the university college in 2012. In July 2014, another enhancement training of one month was also undertaken, led by Professor Lee Youy Geol.
Besides that, Korean experts have been in and out of the state for enhancement training of both the management and the teaching staff”.
Though not forthcoming on the exact figure of the number of people that will be employed by the institute when fully operational, this reporter sighted over 15 low cadre staff while on the premises, many of who were either engaged as cleaners or gardeners, while another two was later sited at the 800KVA power generator house.
Facilities on the premises, including a kitchenette, dining rooms, stores, guard houses, are pointers that the institute will take on more hands when fully in operation.
One of the instructors, Mr. Ada Amorley, of the Automobile Engineering Department said the aim was for them to train students to acquire skills to become responsible and useful citizens.
“The idea is for us to train our prospective students in the area of skill acquisition so that when they come out it is either they are employed or be self-employed,” he said.
The instructors look to introduce more refresher courses when the Korean experts hand over to them in about one month after the commissioning.
The Registrar, Omada Eneojo envisages that five years’ time, over 50 percent of unemployed Kogi youths would have been taken off the streets and become gainfully engaged as a result of the establishment of the institute.
His words: “This system of education in South Korea, both the educated and non-educated benefit from this type of training, and this I must say has added enormous value to their way of life. This, we are determined to replicate locally for the overall benefit of our
people”.
The hand-over/commissioning ceremony of the NKFI will be performed by the State Governor, Capt. Idris Wada, supported by the Ambassador of the Republic of South Korea Mr. NOH Kyu-duk, as contained in a statement issued by Mr. Jacob Edi, Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Strategy.
The event he said will be jointly organized by the Kogi State Government, KOICA Nigeria Office and the National Planning Commission (NPC). The institute, the only one of its kind in the country, he said is part of the flowers of the governor’s transformation agenda for the state.
“It is therefore strategically located on the campus of the Kogi State Polytechnic Lokoja, to meet the dream of its initiators, he added.”
He called on the youths of the state to take the advantages that will be provided by the institute to improve themselves economically.
