The Borno State Government is to establish vocational enterprise institutions (VEIs); to train school dropouts that aspire for self-employment to fight unemployment and poverty. The sites of institutions would be located in the Borno Central, South and North senatorial districts of the state. These were made known Sunday by Commissioner of Science, Technology and Innovations, Dr. Babagana Mustapha at an inter-ministerial briefings in Maiduguri. He said VEIs will provide training for dropout of school persons wishing to go into self-employment opportunities in various sectors of economy. According to him, school leavers will also acquire practical skills to create and secure more employment opportunities. “There are many adults seeking for skill or opportunities to re-skill themselves for various enterprises that could create more jobs,” he said, noting that it is a holistic approach to tackle issues of dropouts and out of school children. The decade long Boko Haram insurgency; has displaced over 1.8 million people with torching of public buildings, including colleges, secondary and primary schools in 20 Councils. While speaking on vocational training programmes, he said: “The VEI will run three-year modular programmes, where each year of study could be terminated by cogent and flexible structure and content,” adding that it will equip the trainees with practical working skills before existing at National Vocational Certificate; part one, two or final. He said the VEI at Muna; has 14 trades with capacity of 700 trainees and boarding facilities, comprising six blocks of hotels with 192 rooms. While fighting unemployment and poverty, Dr. Mustapha said: “Over 300 unemployed graduates have been recommended for job opportunities from the Borno Job Portal,” adding that the recommendations were made to federal government agencies and organized private sector (OPS). He also added that job creation and environmental protection through waste to wealth programmes could reduce the unemployment and poverty among youths. According to him, Governor Babagana Zulum has established and maintained mechanisms of empowering youths in skills acquisition and entrepreneurial development. He said that the mechanisms also include vocational and technical training. “It became inevitable for Zulum provide meaningful training opportunities for basic vocational/technical education as a result of the insurgency,” he said; stating that existing vocational training centres were renovated. He said that a new VEI has been built at Muna and in Jere, while two are currently at various stages of completion for takeoff. “The vocational training centre at Marama had also been completed by the Governor,” he said.
