VOCATIONAL TRAINING: A SOLUTION TO UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG YOUTHS.
Undoubtedly unemployment is one of the banes of our country. Unemployment is particularly common among the youths despite the fact that most of them are graduates of one higher institution or the other. It is assumed that most of the youths are unemployable. Though they are educated. unfortunately, they are educated to be job seekers only and not job creators or employers. What this means is that they are not trained to make use of their hands hence they graduate from higher institutions to become suitable for white collar jobs only. Consequently, most of them become frustrated after searching for white collar jobs for several years without success.
This situation can be reversed if vocational training can be encouraged in and out of our educational institutions. Vocational training is the training received on a particular trade or occupation. For example, girls can be trained to become hair dressers. photographers and so on while our boys can be trained to be barbers, dry cleaners and fashion designers. Training in different vocations is the only panacea to unemployment as any youth who has undergone such training won't have to look for somebody to employ him. He will want to establish himself in the business with the assistance he can get from the government and his parents.
Besides, a youth who is self-employed, due to the vocational training he has received, will train and employ other youths. Through this, the rate of unemployment in our society will be reduced. As a result of this, there will be less pressure on government as government will be able to divert its attention to provision of infrastructure that will facilitate creation of obs. Vocational training, in this way, will make it possible for most of our youths to be producers of goods and services which when purchased will make life comfortable for them.
Furthermore, through vocational training for our youths, many products like soap, detergent, pomade, air freshener and even hand set can be produced. This will make the country to become producers of goods which when improved upon can be exported to other countries of the world to earn foreign exchange for our country.
It is in the light of this that it is a matter of urgency for government to set up vocational centres in all the states in the country. This will enable the youths to come to these vocational centres to learn one trade or the other. Moreover, vocational training should be introduced in schools. This will give the youths the opportunity to learn one vocation or the other which they can fall back on when they are unable to get white collar jobs after graduation.
Vocational training is an efficient method of reducing unemployment through empowering youths economically by training them to use their hands to create job opportunities for themselves. If they are trained in one trade or occupation, they will establish small scale industries which will make them to be self-employed.
Dominic Adams.
SS 3A 1.