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Education, Youth Empowerment & Nigeria’s Future —By Ike Ohamadike

PROGRESS IS POSSIBLE!

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A nation that fails to invest in education and youth development is a nation without a future. We fail as leaders when our society is restive. We fail in our responsibilities as leaders each day we fail to take actions for the common good

We all need to stand to be counted. We must take responsibilities and must make the right calls to enable our young men and women make the right choices that can move our nation forward

We can achieve this through a horizontal and quality education that includes a review of our moribund curriculum. A horizontal education will destroy the quota system syndrome that has eaten deep into the fabrics of this nation like a cancer. With the right education, more doors of opportunities will open, better and challenging skills will be acquired especially by our young people. To achieve this, a responsive government must:

1. Promote collaborations between government, communities and stakeholders to accelerate the development and support of early childhood education
2. Work together with parents, teachers, students and relevant stakeholders to encourage quality learning and teaching
3. Free education below tertiary level
4. Effective funding for primary, technical and vocational education
5. Increase in teacher’s salary
6. Support and continued education for teachers
7. Scholarship for indigent students
8. Provision of internet and Wi-Fi hotspots in our schools for students access
9. Equipment of our libraries with current books

We have made significant progress as a nation but we must agree that we are now at a crossroad, the economy is not at its best. Inflation is putting most basic goods out of the reach of the ordinary people. Families are suffering in silence. A good government is one that is responsive to the needs and concerns of the people it serves. To reduce unemployment, eradicate poverty and keep our youths off the street, a responsive government must:

1. Create a viable youth employment agency under the ministry of labour and replicate same in all the 36 states and the FCT to abolish long-term unemployment across the county
2. Work with traditional and community leaders to ensure that communal lands are accessible for job creation
3. Provide incentives for medium-sized businesses
4. Develop platforms on which government can access feedback on job creation and employment
5. Increase bonus for civil servants
6. Provide agricultural loans for young people to go into small-scale agricultural businesses to be self-reliant
7. Creation of equal opportunities for all and abolish all quota system recruitments
8. Ensuring that all recovered loots from previous administrations are channeled to the provision of grants and loans to young entrepreneurs to excel in their businesses and then employ more youths than wasting it on state governments that have not accounted for the ones given to them from previous recovered loots
9. Provision of internship grants for high school students and fresh graduates by every governor in the 36 states and the FCT from excess security allowances of Governors which run into hundreds of millions of naira, recovered loots from corrupt politicians and from the NNPC
10.Working with the private sector to create TAX HOLIDAYS for companies that employ graduates who have graduated since the last five years without finding a job. This will reduce long-term unemployment after graduation

As a leader once said ”Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience….Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love ”

When we make our priorities right and when we decide to make the right calls, we can create that nation our children can be proud to call their own. Progress is still possible only if we can decide to make that choice today

By Pharm Ike klinsmann Ohamadike, House of Reps Aspirant (PDP), Anaocha/ Njikoka/ Dunukofia Federal Constituency, Anambra State.

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