FG Commences Recruitment of 500,000 Teachers

• Osinbajo launches school feeding programme thursday

Tobi Soniyi in Abuja

The federal government has created an internet portal named npower.gov.ng. through which job seekers can apply for jobs.

A statement issued in Abuja wednesday by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, said the presidency would start taking applications online for positions in the 500,000 direct teacher jobs scheme.

Akande said while the portal would be live on Saturday, June 11, applications are expected to start coming in on June 12, the beginning of next week.

He said: “Young unemployed Nigerians are advised to visit the website and apply.

President Muhammadu Buhari in his May 29 Democracy Day broadcast to the nation, had formally launched the unprecedented social investment programmes already provided for under the 2016 Appropriation by the administration.
The 500,000 Teacher Corps, nicknamed N-Power Teach on the portal, is one of the three direct job creation and training schemes Nigerians can start applying for from Sunday, June 12.

Others are N-Power Knowledge which will train 25,000 Nigerians in the area of technology, and N-Power Build, which trains another 75,000 in the areas of building services, construction, utilities, hospitality and catering, automotive vocations, aluminnium and gas services.

The statement said all trainees would be paid for the duration of their training.
Akande said the N-Power Teacher Corps initiative through which 500,000 young unemployed graduates would be trained would be a paid volunteer programme of a two-year duration.

He said: “Unemployed Nigerians selected and trained will play teaching, instructional, and advisory roles in primary, and secondary schools, agricultural extension systems across the country, public health and community education-covering civic and adult education.

“Besides their monthly take home pay estimated at about N23,000, the selected 500,000 graduates will also get computer devices that will contain information necessary for their specific engagement, as well as information for their continuous training and development. They get to keep the devices even after exiting from the programme.

“According to the plan of the Buhari administration, the N-Power Teacher Corps programme is an invaluable opportunity for young Nigerians to make immense economic and social contributions to the nation while developing their skills. It will also help to address the problems of inadequate teachers in public schools.

“Also, persons enlisted under the scheme will gain work experience and acquire key competencies through academic and non-academic capacity building programmes intended to improve their competitiveness in the workplace. Their devices will come loaded with knowledge-oriented applications and software that will enable them acquire the skills and capacity.

“Under the N-Power Knowledge scheme, there are three aspects: Creative, Technology Software and Hardware. These three sub-divisions will will train 25,000 young Nigerians in all.

“5000 of them will be trained in Animation, Graphic Design, Post-Production, Script-Writing. All of those under the sub-division of N-Power Knowledge-creative category.

“The N-Power Knowledge scheme also has a technology category in two aspects: hardware and software. 10,000 Nigerians will be trained, and equipped in the area of software development, including web designers, and another 10,000 in hardware expertise including to repair, maintain and assemble mobile phones, tablets, computers and other devices.

“Also the N-Power Build category was designed realizing that the presence of a well-trained and highly skilled youth population in any economy has direct impact on entrepreneurship/wealth creation, which in turn leads to a decline in unemployment.

“N-Power Build is therefore an accelerated training and certification (Skills to Job/Enterprise) programme that will engage and train 75,000 young unemployed Nigerians in order to build a new crop of skilled and highly competent workforce of technicians, artisans and service professionals.

“The other schemes in the Buhari presidency Social Investment Programmes which would soon be rolled out in the coming weeks. These include the Conditional Cash Transfer that pays N5000 monthly to one million Nigerians, the Micro-Credit Scheme for more than 1.5 million Nigerians, the Home Grown School Feeding programme that will serve 5.5 million Nigerian pupils in primary school a free hot meal per day this year and the Education support grant programme for 100,000 tertiary students in Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics, STEM and education.”

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo will today launch Nigeria’s first national Home Grown School Feeding programme.
Under the programme, over 24 million primary school children will be given one meal per day in the first year of its operation.

The event is billed to hold at the Old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. A statement from the office of the acting president said the programme would be implemented at state levels.

The scheme is part of the N500 billion Social Investment plans of the president Mohammadu Buhari’s presidency.
Similarly, both the federal and state governments would also review the Strategic Plan for the scheme.

Some dignitaries expected to be in attendance included Governors of Borno, Oyo, Osun, Enugu and Kaduna, and other government representatives and stakeholders from the 36 states as well as developmental partners.
The statement said that the strategic plans would run until 2020 and would form the cornerstone of the nationwide Home Grown School Feeding programme.

The statement added that “the federal government is working with key technical partners to capitalize upon global experience and adopt best practices.”

One such partner is the UK’s Imperial College, London’s Partnership for Child Development (PCD) which is providing technical assistance to the Presidency.

“Not only will the Home Grown School Feeding programme help our pupils become better students, it will also boost the local economies, and create new jobs along the way,” the statement added.