Youth Empowerment:Employability and Entrepreneurship of the Nigerian Youth

Every year, Nigeria churns out millions of graduates from the universities and NYSC program into the work force market. It is no news that there is a mismatch between available jobs and the number of fresh graduates. Besides the obvious problem, there is also the problem of the employability of these graduates and their abilities to harness and develop their entrepreneurial skills. There remains a huge gap in what has been taught in the universities and what is required in the workplace.  
There is also need for more SMEs to spring up and flourish to buffer the imbalance in jobs available and job seekers.
ReadySetWork is an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Education to proffer viable solutions to these developmental and economic problems. 

The initiative was launched to enable final year university students and graduates compete on a global level as employees and to help those with business ideas launch and become employers of labor.
500 students in Lagos campuses enrolled for the program where they were taught basic workplace soft skills and qualities and entrepreneurial training over a span of 12 weeks with 75% attendance mandatory for successful completion of the program. A robust curriculum was put together in collaboration with workplace professionals to facilitate the training.
Taking it a step further to not only train but provide opportunities to practice learnings, the ministry has collaborated with businesses to provide 100 guaranteed internship opportunities to the best performing students in the employability training.  A 15 million naira seed funding has also been approved to jump start potential student entrepreneurs with great business ideas for the entrepreneurship segment of the training. Internships will be earned through real life interviews with employers while the seed funding will be accessed through a business pitch on the 3rd of September at the Lagos State University.
The final graduation is scheduled to hold at the later part of September at the Landmark Village. With the success of this initiative we are hoping that other states will develop similar initiatives for a nationwide impact on the youth who remain one of our greatest resources.