The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige has disclosed that not all youths are entitled to the N5,000 monthly stipend promised by President Muhammadu Buhari, stressing that the federal government intends to convert most of the unemployed graduates to teachers in a bid to tackle graduate unemployment.
Speaking at an event to mark the 5th anniversary of Bina foundation and graduation ceremony of its students in Enugu, Ngige maintained that only vulnerable youths in the society will benefit from the N5,000 monthly stipends contrary to popular believes that the social welfare initiative was for all.
He also donated equipment worth N10m to the graduands.
According to the minister, “The APC government anchored delivery on three pillars; security of lives and property, improving economy under which employment creation is the third sub-head, and infrastructure revival.
“You can see that employment creation is the main issue. We have heard people say we are waiting for N5, 000. We did not say we are paying N5,000 to all the youth. We are saying it is for the most vulnerable.”
On how the All Progressive Congress, APC-led federal government intends to tackle unemployment, he disclosed that the government had budgeted N500bn for social safety needs in the coming year.
“Most unemployed graduates would be converted to teachers. The move is equally aimed at boosting the education sector,” he stated.
While observing that most of the current crop of teachers in public schools were half-baked, Ngige said the government would pay serious attention to skills acquisition.
His words, “For the social safety needs, we have budgeted N500bn for the next fiscal year.
“We have captured unemployed graduates. We are doing two things; we get those who read Law, Engineering and other disciplines but do not have jobs. We would train them for nine months and convert them to teachers.
“Most of our schools have half-baked teachers. We want to redefine our schools and make them what they are.
“We are also building skill acquisition centres. We have 12 of them across the country. The era of white-collar industry is gone.
“Nobody in Nigeria will be unemployed, people will learn how to use their hands.”
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