The Nigerian government says it will start taking applications online for positions in the 500,000 Direct Teacher Jobs Scheme, through an internet portal.

A statement by a spokesman for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, said that the portal, npower.gov.ng would be live on Saturday, June 11.

The presidency said applications are expected to start coming in on June 12, the beginning of next week and advised young unemployed Nigerians to visit the website and apply.

President Muhammadu Buhari in his May 29 Democracy Day broadcast to the nation, formally launched the unprecedented social investment programmes already provided for under the 2016 Appropriation by the administration.

The 500,000 Teacher Corps is one of the three direct job creation and training schemes that Nigerians can start applying for from Sunday, June 12.

N-Power Knowledge Scheme

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

All trainees would be paid for the duration of their training.

The N-Power Teacher Corps initiative, which will engage and train 500,000 young unemployed graduates, is a paid volunteer programme of a two-year duration.

Under the initiative, 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 23,000 Naira 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 program,” the statement read.

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, the government believes.

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.

The N-Power Knowledge Scheme is further separated into three aspects – Creative, Technology Software and Hardware. These three sub-divisions will train 25,000 young Nigerians in all.

The statement from the presidency further said that 5,000 of them would be trained in Animation, Graphic Design, Post-Production, Script-Writing. All of those are under the sub-division of N-Power Knowledge-creative category.

According to the Vice President, the N-Power Knowledge Scheme also has a technology category in two aspects: hardware and software. 10,000 Nigerians would 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.

The government said the N-Power Build category was designed, realising that the presence of a well-trained and highly skilled youth population in any economy had 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 of the current administration is the ‘Social Investment Programmes’ which, according to the government, would be rolled out in coming weeks.

Under this category are the Conditional Cash Transfer that pays 5,000 Naira 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 and Mathematics and education. (Channels TV)

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