I took these pictures with my students in Basic 3 as we are preparing to close the last school term. Looking at their faces, you will agree that they were really excited to take this shot with me. I feel happy too and honored to contribute to the development of these kids and hope that my efforts will pay off both now and in the nearest future when they would have grown into responsible adults in the society.
About the Npower Programme in Nigeria
Npower is a Federal Government programme to tackle unemployment, lack of skills among university graduates and provision of skilled and knowledgeable manpower in economic areas lacking same. So basically, Npower trains Nigerian graduates in relevant areas of their course of study and deploys them into industries and public services lacking such manpower. Here is how they explained it:
Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development. Despite the current high level of unemployment, harnessing Nigeria’s young demography through appropriate skill development efforts provides an opportunity to achieve inclusion and productivity within the country. Large-scale skill development is the main policy thrust of the N-Power Programme.
N-Power is also linked to the Federal Government’s policies in the economic, employment and social development arenas. N-Power addresses the challenge of youth unemployment by providing a structure for large scale and relevant work skills acquisition and development while linking its core and outcomes to fixing inadequate public services and stimulating the larger economy. The modular programmes under N-Power will ensure that each participant will learn and practice most of what is necessary to find or create work. The N-Power Volunteer Corp involves a massive deployment of 500,000 trained graduates who will assist to improve the inadequacies in our public services in education, health and civic education. Some of these graduates will also help in actualising Nigeria’s economic and strategic aspirations of achieving food security and self-sufficiency.
Npower has four programmes for volunteer graduates that want to join. There are four major programmes for the graduate category. They are listed below:
1. N-POWER AGRO
N-POWER AGRO trains participants in various areas of modern agriculture and deploys them to the agricultural sector where they will use the knowlegde and skills obtained to contribute to national economic development.
2. N-POWER HEALTH
Graduates of Medicine and other health related courses are trained under N-POWER HEALTH. Their academic knowledge plus the training they receive from the programme will equip them to serve when deployed to the Health sector.
3. N-POWER TEACH
N-POWER TEACH - under which I serve as a voluteer - trains qualified graduates and deploys them to work as Teacher Assistants at the Basic Education level. I assist the main teacher in Basic 3 at the school I was deployed to.
N-POWER TAX
Qualified graduates are trained under N-POWER TAX andd deployed to the tax sector to work and encourage taxpayers to be honest and properly declare their assets.
My take on the N-POWER program.
Its a nice initiative by the Nigerian Government to solve the glaring issue of youth unemployment. While many youths go to school and many more are already in various tertiay institutions, millions are unemployed or not gainfully employed. This programme will not only assist in various areas of the economy lacking skilled workforce, but will also develop job creators from the teeming youth population. Since N-POWER is a two year project for each volunteer, I have a vision to become an employer of labor in the next 5 years. I already have a small tech startup and am pushing it hard towards empowering other youths in my country Nigeria.
Note: Npower volunteers receive a stipend of $83 each month to assist with their upkeep. You can read more about the N-POWER programme here.