The World Bank has expressed readiness to spend $10 million for Nigerian youths to acquire the critical skills needed for employment.

Mistura Rufai, the World Bank education specialist, disclosed this at a two-day Innovation Grant Facilities (IGF) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/Contract Signing and Implementation Workshop in Abuja on Monday.

The workshop was organised by the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project of the Federal Ministry of Education.

Ms Rufai said the country needed youths to be empowered and trained in building its economic fortunes, adding that the current scheme had about 78 grantees to empower over 50,000 youths nationwide.

“This facility was designed to support complementing agencies that are promoting innovations in the training of digital skills.

“The training is expected to have beginners, intermediate to advanced level. As we speak at the national level, we have about 10,000 youths currently being trained.

“We also have about 78 grantees and we hope that in about a year, we will have over 50,000 grantees being trained,” she said.

On her part, the national project coordinator, IDEAS, Blessing Ogwu, said the programme was created to give every Nigerian child the opportunity to learn and acquire skills.

Ms Ogwu said that with the increasing number of out-of-school children in the country, removing them from the street was necessary.

She charged the grantees to be committed to the initiative to reduce the number of unemployed youths.

“The essence of this project is focusing on the skill acquisition to reduce unemployment in Nigeria. We don’t need anyone to tell us that we have so many youths who are unemployed.

“Most of our youths are unemployed, and the only way is for the youths to acquire our skills,” she said.

Also, the IGF Consultant, Ndem Ayara, explained that the project, scheduled to be implemented within one year, was a Public/Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.

“In the partnership, the public sector will support the consortium to implement the project up to 80 per cent, the private sector partner will provide 20 per cent.

“Of the 20 per cent by the private sector, they will contribute 10 per cent in kind and the other 10 per cent in cash.

“It is the cash component of the private sector contribution that is expected to be the counterpart funding by the private sector,” Mr Ayara said.

(NAN)