NDE to import one million economic trees to engage 5,000 youths

The Director General of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Dr Nasiru Ladan has disclosed that plans are underway to bring about one million economic trees that would engage about 5,000 youths in the country.

Ladan explained that the economic trees that grow within 12 months would be brought in from Malaysia and that discussions have already been held with some state governments on the provision of land for the agriculture initiative to take off soon.

He promised that the directorate would henceforth focus on demand driven training programmes in all states of the federation.

The Director General Abuja at a press briefing.

He explained that to achieve effective training, the 83 training programmes of the NDE have been streamlined to 10.

“We have reduced the NDE’s training programmes to 10 from 83. I believe that it is better we reduce them to a manageable number so that we can deliver excellence.

“The trainings are distributed amongst the four departments namely: Vocational Skills Development, Rural Employment Promotion, Special Public Works and Small Scale Enterprises.”

He said that the training programmes would be introduced in states would be influenced by specific demands, adding that 4,000 street artisans without specific stated this in address to ply their trades have been placed in construction firms within Abuja.

He explained that the directorate had to do that because it was convinced that the construction companies would feel comfortable when they see that the artisans were provided by the NDE.

He noted that henceforth, the NDE would look at every state of the federation to see which trade was more acceptable to youths there so that upon training and settlement, they would be willing to set up and even employ others.

Ladan is of the view that Nigeria can export skills to countries like Qatar that are facing acute shortage of skills, but must have all the regulations done first partnership can work.

“Nigeria can have partnership with a country like Qatar where most of the workforces are foreigners. In Nigeria, we are facing massive unemployment with millions of qualified professionals that cannot find jobs while there are countries facing acute shortage of workforce,” he said. before such