Bring back Lagos Ready Set Work programme, graduating students beg Sanwo-Olu

Students of tertiary institutions in Lagos State, especially the graduating ones, have once again appealed to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to resuscitate the Ready Set Work (RSW) programme.

They said the continued abandonment of the programme since last year, when the last edition was held, was not only detrimental to them as direct beneficiaries but also to residents of the state and the Nigerian economy.

RSW is an initiative of the Lagos State government, which commenced during the administration of Governor Akinwumi Ambode. It was designed to sharpen entrepreneurial knowledge and skills of final year students and their immediate juniors across fields of studies in both the public and private tertiary institutions in the state, ahead of their graduation.

The philosophy behind the programme, according to the then governor was that irrespective of ownership of tertiary institutions in Lagos State, government should be able to add its own value to graduating students and make them really employable and ready for the world of work either as employees or employers.

Since then, the number of participants from the University of Lagos, Akoka; Lagos State University, Ojo; Yaba College of Technology; Caleb University, Imota; Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu; Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Otto\Ijanikin and two other schools had peaked at 37,500.

Though, voluntary and free of charge, the programme is painstaking and demanding as every participant must have to make 87.5 per cent minimum benchmark in attendance, class participation, team work and home assignments to graduate and be awarded a certificate.

They were trained for 13 weekends by the volunteer seasoned and dedicated professionals and entrepreneurs in various fields, and the last edition which ended in October 2018 produced 14 small-scale enterprises in either sole or joint ownership and cut across agriculture, healthcare, foods and beverages, footwear, information and communications technology, among others as well as many interns for companies.