The Oyo State Board for Technical and Vocational Education (BOTAVED) has charged Nigerian youths and graduates across the country to acquire vocational and technical skills, with a view to overcoming the challenges of unemployment.
The board also said the acquisition of vocational skills and education would enable the youth and jobless graduates to be self-reliant in the face of dwindling white-collar jobs.
Executive Secretary of BOTAVED, Mrs Cynthia Esan-Williams, gave the charge while speaking during the graduation ceremony of 2021/2022 set of Royal Spices Academy in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.
Esan-Williams, who was represented by Mr Adepoju Adewale, noted that the board had registered many technical and vocational centres in order to reduce the rate of poverty in the country.
She said, “technical and vocational training can reduce poverty and unemployment in the country. It is in recognition of this that the state government certified and approved some technical and vocational training schools.
“We did this so as to reduce poverty and unemployment in the state. We did this so as to engage youths to be self-employed. To alleviate poverty in Oyo state.
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The Rector of Royal Spices Academy, Dr (Mrs) Olufunmi Adegbile, while speaking with journalists lamented that most graduates are not employable because they lack vocational and technical skills apart from the certificates they acquired.
She however said that the institution was established so as to produce graduates with the required skills in the labour market and produce people who will be self-reliant.
“Over the years, our young ones, graduates, they finished from universities, polytechnics and they are unemployable. So this academy was established out of the passion to contribute to the society, to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.
“We are having 87 graduating students today in different departments. As we turn out a new set of graduates today, we believe that we are sending out great ambassadors who will go out and make a difference in the hospitality sector and contribute to the realising of our own dream of positively impacting our society and economy.”
The Head of Clinical Psychology Unit and Psychotherapy Centre, Department of Psychology, Lagos State University (LASU), Professor Onaolapo Taiwo in his lecture noted that there is no age limitation to the acquisition of skills.
He said: “Acquire skills. It can be done at any age even when you are 80. Skills can be acquired when you are 20, 30 or even when you are 80. As psychologists, we believe that each human being has the ability to acquire one form of skill or the other.”
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