Tech-U, Foundation sign MoU on youths’ technical, vocational skills training

The Black Ancestral Native Communities (BANC) Foundation and the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University (Tech-U), Ibadan, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide technical and vocational skills training for youths in Nigeria as part of efforts to curb illegal migration.

The MoU, signed at the university, entails providing hands-on skills training in various technical and vocational areas, including automobile, woodwork, and the built environment, among others.

The President/Chief Executive Officer of the BANC Foundation, Dr. Chibuzor Onyema, stated that the initiative was an offshoot of the Anti-Illegal Migration (AIM) Summit convened by the Foundation in September 2024, where solutions were proposed to address the rising cases of illegal migration and encourage the voluntary return of Nigerian immigrants.

Onyema stated that through the initiative, which is in partnership with the International Returns and Reintegration Assistance, young people will receive a technoversity model-like vocational and technical skills that will enable them to create jobs and equip them for the job market in and outside the country as dignified manpower.

He added that the training will leverage the expertise of the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University in the area of technical education to provide certification to the participants.

Onyema said: “This is the beginning of a relationship that has just started between us and the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University to provide non-classroom, hands-on training for the teeming population of Nigerian youth to come in here to train on becoming better for themselves. Those skills they would have learnt by the roadside without having certifications, they can now come here to learn them and get certified, and be qualified to work both in Nigeria and outside of Nigeria.

“We are not ending in just training them; we are also providing them the mechanism through which they may now legally and regularly transfer their skills to other countries of the world where they are in need.

“It means that instead of them going to pay agents and be scammed when they want to go overseas, they may now go through either the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University or the BANC Foundation in finding opportunities overseas where they can work legitimately and earn a good living.

“The most important part of it, which we often advocate, is that with the skills they learn, they can become more useful here at home because we are strong advocates of young people staying back home and helping in building this nation.

“We have come here (Abiola Ajimobi Technical University) because they own the template, they own the platform upon which this project is being launched. It is a technoversity model in the sense that you don’t have to have credits to come here; it is purely vocational, and again, it aligns with what the Federal Government is doing through the TVET project. The project is to train young people to become entrepreneurially intelligent, vocationally apt, and technologically qualified to work anywhere in the world.”

In his speech, the Vice-Chancellor, Abiola Ajimobi Technical University, Professor Sola Ajayi, said the initiative aligns with is already in place at the university, as it was founded to bridge the technical skills gap in the labour market by training undergraduates in their chosen field of technical learning in addition to their degree programmes and compulsory courses in French Language.

Professor Ajayi noted that the missing piece in Nigeria’s tertiary education is entrepreneurship development that ensures head and hand competence, which graduates can leverage to become job creators and not job seekers only.

He said: “The MoU presents us an opportunity to lead, both locally, regionally, and otherwise, in the effort of the country to provide functional education, as well as opportunities for our teeming youths in terms of providing livable engagements.

“We have signed an MoU that allows us to design, refine, as well as to collaborate in providing very functional and efficient training opportunities, particularly in the area of entrepreneurship and vocational opportunities.

“We have a lot of people who have acquired knowledge but for whom there is still a struggle as to how to put the knowledge into practice and to contribute to society. So, we see this as an opportunity to leverage on our own reputation as a university, the trademark, and the opportunities that have been created by the NGO that we are signing with in terms of encouraging migration, not only out, but migration to in terms of those who have gone to return and those who are intending to go to reconsider it. If eventually they are going to go, they will be doing so, not as liabilities, but as assets.

“The university has an opportunity to be able to showcase itself as the first technical university in Nigeria, and that also complements the vision and the mission of the university as an institution that not only develops the brain, but also trains the hands.”

The Vice-Chancellor also charged Nigerian youths on the importance of acquiring technical and vocational skills in addition to formal education in areas that are relevant and provide solutions to societal needs.

Also at the MoU signing were some principal officers of the Abiola Ajimobi Technical University, executive members of the BANC Foundation, and representatives of the Returns and Reintegration Assistance.

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