Unemployment: Nigerian youths must learn beyond their certificates–Ogunsola

Mr Dayo Ogunsola is an entrepreneur, development strategists and founder of COLLETT Nigeria. In this interview with PHILIP CLEMENT, he spoke on the objectives of his organization, aimed at inculcating 21st-century skills among Nigerian graduates to improve the country’s economy. He, also, discussed various economic policies of the government, among other salient issues.

Tell us more about COLLETT?

COLLETT which stands for College Education Trainers and Trainees is a foundation in Nigeria with a goal of putting many young people on the job by retraining and giving them new facelift and also helping them to seek employment opportunities with reliable employers both nationally and internationally, and mentor them in their growth.

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For us to achieve this, we have a major focus on Nigerian graduates and this is because they are prone to be unemployed; because, in their minds, they feel that they know a lot, but in the real sense they know little than they should know for them to be attractive to modern-day employers. This is because of employers now seek a return on investment when they employ.

Consequently, we have set up a six months programme for graduates where interested students will apply, get evaluated and eventually admitted to undergoing training in the major pillars, Soft, technical and functional skills that make them attractive to modern-day employers.

What is your take on the current rise in youthful unemployment and what is COLLETT doing to bridge the gap?

People often blame the government for unemployment, but what they don’t understand is that government is not an island, and they can’t provide employment for everybody. The job of the government is to provide the enabling environment for the Small and Medium enterprises to survive.

The government‘s recent policies on land-boundaries as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN ) forex policies on certain goods are the right steps in the right direction, which is aimed at increasing locally produced products and boost the economy.

Therefore, the policy on border closure which many have complained about is a very good policy. Yes, it may have led to a rise in inflation, but it is temporary. There more economic to gain in the long run.

Is your organization in partnership with any foreign institution to boost skill acquisition among Nigerian youths?

Yes, COLLETT is a strategic organization that intends to have a wide presence in Africa, so in order to douse the shock entering into the African market; the headquarters of the organization is established in Switzerland. The COLLETT Swiss is in partnership with The COLLETT Nigeria, and it is an independent entity with its board.

We meet with them regularly to discuss issues such as capacity, finance and infrastructure to achieve our initiatives. In addition, we are talking to governments at all levels as well as the Swizz Swiss Embassy in Nigeria and other few international organizations. Thus, we believe that if all these target groups truly they have the vision to tackle unemployment in Africa, we will soon have them on board to work together on the modalities to solve the endemic problem.

Have any of your programmes commenced?

We haven’t commenced with our core program. Although we have been carrying out other programmes. Many people say that university graduates may find it difficult to stay in a class for six months.

Therefore, we’re setting up mechanisms to commence, and we are speaking with governments and other agencies to sponsor some of these students if they can. However, we will not change the curriculum because it is at the interest of the country and the job seekers, we also hope that the first set will start April or May 2020.

However, in between, we have done about six programmes but not graduate programmes. We have worked basically with SMEs in business development.

What are some of the challenges?

We have some challenges, one of which is the funding of the graduate programs which to deliver of a period of six months commensurate with international standards. Howbeit, we have renovated our building to compete with any university in Nigeria. We believe, with the right backing and policies, we will overcome.

Owing to the financial requirement to deliver quality education, we foresee the inability of the students to pay the fees we are going to charge them, but what we’re doing is to look for people or organisations to offset tow-third of the school fees on their behalf. 

To have the students’ commitment, we expect that those who scale through our admission process will pay just one-third of the fees while the organizations or sponsors will pay the rest. What we are charging for this six-month program is about 85 per cent cheaper than any of them going to Europe or any other part of the world to obtain the same level of training.

We will give them the best education according to the global standard. We shall do this by engaging and by bringing national and international professional from within the social and business communities to facilitate classes, expose them to the internship, and help individual trainees to discover a passionate career path. 

Why should the students pay one-third and not full sponsorship?

They will pay the money for them to be committed. If everything is free, I assure you half of them will not be in class 2 weeks after the programme must have commenced. I have seen it happen. So we won’t allow anyone to pay 100 per cent of the fee nor allows them to attend the programme without personal financial commitment. 

How much is the fees?

Ordinarily, the programme would $17,000(N6,179,107.73) dollars if they want to go outside the country. We decided that since we are in Nigeria, we will just cover the cost of our local professors and people coming outside the country to teach students. Therefore for now, the cost is in the range of $1,500-$1,700 (N545,216.78 – N617,910.77) equivalent in naira.

Have you set up the mechanism to sustain the programmes?

Of course we have set up mechanisms to succeed. There is no reason why we won’t survive if we are able to finance our operations.

What are the courses that you will be offering to these graduate trainees?

We are looking at seven modules. First, we have Nigerian languages. This is because we strongly believe that Nigerian languages should be taught in primary and secondary schools. After English and possibly mother language, a Nigerian should also be able to speak one other language from another tribe.

It will extremely help our country, policies and politics. Additionally, it can even be a source of employment generation in this country which ranges from translation to product description writing.

Secondly, the other one is civic education which will deal with history, culture and behaviour as well as the indigenous economy. We want to go back to those days of our cultural integration because we realize that we are losing our identity. Thirdly we will be dwelling extensively on information and communication technology going forward. All our trainees must be IT savvy and be verse enough to apply IT their core functional area of specialization. These are the three core modules we will focus on.

What are the plans for the future?

Our plan for the future is to engage with universities. We aim to identify our organisation with at least five universities before the end of the year. We have a programme called the COLLETT College Club (CCC) which we intend to deploy to support students socially and encourage innovations and inventions thereby serving as a back up to the governments and colleges.

Also, we will be engaging with secondary schools, already we are in serious discussion with 5 secondary schools. We are doing all of these in line with our objectives to enhance skills and make Nigerian graduates more attractive to 21st century employers.