The Enugu government says it is targeting 40,000 youths annually to be trained and empowered with modern skills in various human endeavours.

The commissioner for youths and sports, Lloyd Ekweremadu, told journalists on Tuesday that the programme would involve artificial intelligence and upscaling existing skills to international standards.

According to him, the Enugu government’s design for youth skill upscaling and empowerment is a multi-sectoral approach involving most ministries, with the youth ministry coordinating.

He said that the programmes were designed in various ministries to reach the targeted 40,000 youths annually.

The commissioner also noted that, within some months of taking office, his ministry had been able to partner with some organisations and bodies to provide skills and general empowerment.

Mr Ekweremadu said, “We have ongoing online artificial intelligence training and digital skill upscaling with ALX and Mastercraft Foundation, and for now, we have trained 500 youths, while thousands more will be trained before the end of the year.

“This training is meant to give our youths the necessary hi-tech knowledge for various human endeavours and get certified to gain from the competitive international labour market.”

He said that after the training, depending on what was trained on, beneficiaries would be given a starter pack to start commercially practising what they had learnt and adding value to the state’s economy.

Mr Ekweremadu said that all these efforts to raise youths’ productive and innovative capacities were designed to prepare them to contribute to the drive to improve the state’s economic status from the present $4.4 billion to $30 billion.

“The state government believes that the expansion of the economic base and earning of the state is highly possible, especially when youths fully key into it and become the drivers of the aspiration,” he said.

(NAN)