By Michael Oche
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has embarked on a strategic capacity building for over 100 staff in its ICT department in a bid to strengthen the agency’s capacity to deliver services online and support Nigeria’s growing population of job seekers.
Speaking in Abuja, the Director General of NDE, Mr. Silas Agara, emphasized the critical importance of the move, noting that the success of the training program will enable NDE to provide more opportunities to young Nigerians, aligning with the President Bola Tinubu administration mandate to create more job opportunities for Nigerians.
He also noted that the training, the first of its kind since the creation of the Agency, was necessary especially in light of the Directorate’s recent move to transition from manual to digital processes.
Agara said the success of the first phase of the Renewed Hope Employment Initiative which empowered 90,000 Nigerians has set high expectations for the second phase, necessitating system upgrades to handle increased traffic.
He said, “Nigerians are looking up to NDE to reignite the NDE of those days. The lessons that we have learned from the first phase of the Renewed Hope Job Initiative have made it very imperative for us to upgrade the skills of our ICT staff nationwide. The NDE is at the point of digitizing and automating all our operations.”
The Director General said the training will improve nationwide access to employment and skills development opportunities for unemployed Nigerians.
Agara said, “you will recall that we just concluded our Renewed Hope Employment Initiate that was flagged off last year. It was done online. That was the first in our drive to move the system from manual practice that the NDE is known for to online so that everybody can have access to NDE programmes, not just the privileged few that were being given the form to participate in the NDE programme.
“One thing we noticed in moving our system online was that the capacity of the staff was limited and the equipment to aid them in that operation were not available, and we had to fall back to other sister agencies, to ensure that the programme didn’t suffer, but we cannot continue to do that.”
He explained that the significant changes in employment landscapes since NDE’s establishment 35 years ago, has necessitated the shift towards IT operations.
According to him, NDE has decided to allocate a minimum of 60% of its resources towards digital skills training, reflecting the current industry demands.
He said the training program aims to equip staff with the skills needed to manage the expected influx of applications in the second phase of the program, noting that the NDE is committed to position itself as the core agency for job creation in the country.
