READY, SET, WORK : UNDERGRADUATE? READY? LAGOS STATE GOVT WANTS TO MAKE YOU EMPLOYABLE

 

 READY, SET, WORK :  UNDERGRADUATE? READY? LAGOS STATE GOVT WANTS TO MAKE YOU EMPLOYABLE


Ready, Set, Work
Undergraduate? Ready? Lagos state govt wants to make you employable


While this is still a young program, the numbers are pretty impressive.

 



 Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, Governor of Lagos State.  (Premium Times)
The Lagos State Government is launching a website to register intending applicants for the 2017 edition of Ready.Set.Work, a project aimed at equipping final year students with valuable skills.
This was made known by the Special Adviser to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh, at a news conference.


» more Special Adviser to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh  (Ready.Set.Work)
He said interested applicants will gain access to the website, www.readysetwork.com.ng from June 16, while the training will run from July 1 to September 16, 2017.

As an improvement on the initiative which is only just a year old, students of six tertiary institutions in the State would benefit, while three centres have been designated to host the training.

The selected schools are:

Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (ACCOED),

Lagos State College of Health Science (LASCOHET),

Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH),

Lagos State University (LASU),

Michael Otedola College of Education (MOCPED) and,

University of Lagos (UNILAG).

Out of the 12,000 students, only about 2,000 (16%) will be selected for the training in three selected centres.

The remaining 10,000 will be selected from students in their penultimate year at the institutions and trained through the online platform and also registered for the RSW Academy.

Here's what he said:

“When the administration of Governor Ambode came on board, one of the issues he was confronted with from the private sector was that there were major gaps in the work readiness of graduates, and his immediate response was to come up with a scheme to equip graduates from our tertiary institutions with the right skills needed to add value to the society.

“And so, the vision of the RSW is that every graduate from a tertiary institution situated in Lagos must have the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to gain meaningful employment or be self-employed and our plan is to train all graduates in tertiary institutions through the RSW.”

The only criteria for selection, he says, is competence. They will be trained for 13 weeks on labour market, mindset reorientation, 21st century skills, entrepreneurship, employability skills and teacher track.

The best 750.
These ones, the Lagos State Government will help to secure internships, while winners of the business pitch competition will receive seed funding.

But how sustainable is this program?
In this format, we learn, the program has a short lifespan. That's because the Lagos State government wants to make it a part of the education curriculum in the state, expanding the modules, as well as the beneficiary institutions.

Out of the 500 students that were registered for the scheme in 2016, only 422 graduated after the rigorous training with Sarunmi Oluwafemi and Dada Samuel who emerged as the overall winners of the pitch competition walking away with N1 million seed funding and N100, 000 monthly working capital for six months.


» more Sarunmi Oluwafemi and Dada Samuel receiving their prize in 2016.  (Inside Mainland)
The second and third place winners also got N500, 000 and N250, 000 respectively with N100,000 working capital for six months.