AGAINST the background of the worsening mass youth unemployment, the decision by the Lagos State Government to provide loans to graduates of technical colleges to enable them take off as entrepreneurs has the potential to provide much needed relief in that sector. To that extent, it is a step in the right direction, an initiative that should be encouraged and nurtured to fruition. If well articulated and implemented, it would not only bridge the unemployment gap by creating jobs, it could also boost enrollment in technical colleges. Sadly, despite the promise of such colleges to impact on practical education and job creation, that tier of vocational studies has been relegated to the background. This could be an opportunity to reinvigorate the technical education sector with a view to making it a major factor in engaging the youth. The Lagos State authorities should think through the scheme properly and ensure that the right framework is established to avoid failure.
Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire reportedly made the disclosure on the loan last week during the 2014 Enterprise Day in Alausa, Ikeja. The event, organised by the Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board, was aimed at developing a new generation of entrepreneurs. That should be the goal of all state governments given the high unemployment rate across the country, and its attendant social malfeasance.
According to Orelope-Adefulire, the interest-free loans will be given to technical college graduates without collateral, other than proof that they are graduates of any of the government-owned technical colleges. She said the loans will be processed through the Lagos State Micro Finance Institution; and the application forms for obtaining the loan would be provided at their institutions.
Furthermore, she explained that the Enterprise Day was a programme designed to articulate and foster enterprise education among technical college students. Consequently, the programme was geared towards encouraging the students to embrace entrepreneurial skills and develop the right attitude to self-employment.
The Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye, in her address, said the scheme was aimed at instilling a positive attitude in Lagos youths towards entrepreneurship. She said that the government did a curriculum re-alignment in the technical colleges to highlight the importance of skills, training, involvement of industries and public-private partnership in technical and vocational education for meeting emerging needs of a globalised economy.
There is no doubt that mass unemployment is wreaking havoc among school leavers and, by extension, on the nation. Millions of youths are roaming the streets in search of non-existent jobs. The ensuing disappointment and frustration are certainly adding to the challenges of insecurity and social instability, manifesting in several guises across the country. It is therefore, imperative that pro-active measures such as that of loan to technical college graduates be embraced to ameliorate the ugly situation. Clearly, self-employment appears to be one way of significantly reducing problems posed by the prevailing mass unemployment.
The other day, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, revealed that 1.8 million graduates enter the job market yearly. That indeed, is staggering, even if it is not an underestimation; it poses a threat to social stability. There seems to be no immediate solution, especially when the true picture is unknown. For that huge number to enter the job market annually when a backlog of millions has no job portends grave danger for the country already traumatised by myriads of problems. It is, however, baffling that all this while, government appears to have no serious plan to effectively counter a problem as grave as that identified by the minister. Even when its calculation of the unemployed is unreliable, a government in its true sense ought to have a commensurate plan in appreciation of the gravity of the problem. This again advertises failure of planning. There should be an official synergy to make educational institutions provide the information plank for the population of school leavers and job seekers.
The Lagos State Government would be breaking the iron curtain if it can find meaningful engagement for thousands of technical graduate students. Although the unemployment crisis cuts across graduates from all levels of education, it is sensible to begin this proactive loan scheme with technical college graduates based on the skills they have acquired. The aim should be to encourage the setting up of small business enterprises that could employ several other youths.
It is not clear why the scheme targets only technical graduates from public institutions. Graduates of approved private technical colleges should be included into the scheme. Any discrimination between public and private technical colleges would create problems. After all, duly approved private colleges have licence and their certificates are duly recognised.
But the Lagos State Government should take a step further to educate and enlighten the recipients of such loans on how to prepare business plan. Many graduates do not know how to envision small businesses. Therefore, there is need for orientation of the selected graduates to furnish them with the necessary rudiments through training. Indeed there should be trained trainers who would anchor the scheme. The exercise will not be complete without a monitoring and evaluation scheme to ensure effectiveness. The state government should set a target to serve as yardstick for evaluation.
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