Seven Thousand Youth Acquire Skills in ICT

Seven thousand more youth who undertook a six-month training programme in mobile phone repairs and assembling at the Rlg Institute of Technology under the ICT module of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) have successfully completed.

This group was the third batch of trainees to benefit from the ICT programme and brings the total number of beneficiaries, some of whom graduated last year, to about 24,000.

The newly trained youth would each be presented with a vendor kiosk to be located at various suitable places across the country, a seed loan of GH¢2,200 and a set of start-up kits.

An indigenous ICT firm, Rlg Communications, which trains ICT beneficiaries under the NYEP, is the implementing organisation of the ICT module of the programme.

About 30,000 youth have been trained by Rlg since its engagement with the NYEP, with some of the beneficiaries having been engaged as instructors in the ever-expanding rlg Institute of Technology.

As part of the training programme, trainees are set up or employed in the company’s sales and service centres on permanent basis.

A Deputy National Co-ordinator of the NYEP, Mr Selasi Attipoe-Fritz, advised the prospective entrepreneurs to take their businesses seriously, urging them to work hard by justifying the financial and human investment made in them, which is a way of stemming the tide of youth unemployment in the country.

He noted with appreciation that beneficiaries of the module since its inception were doing well in their established businesses and that if that trend continued, the objective to empower the youth through ICT application could be achieved.

For its effort at leading the way in ICT development at the local level, the first batch of ICT trainers of the Rlg Communications are currently in Nigeria’s Osun State for a capacity-building training for the youth of Nigeria as the job creation development module pioneered by Rlg has been elevated to another level by its replication in Nigeria.

About eight experienced trainers from the Rlg Institute of Technology are in the Osun State to begin a six-month intensive training of the first batch of trainees who will in turn take over the training of the youth in the state.

The Chief Operating Officer of the Rlg Institute of Technology, Mr Isaac Appiah, told the Daily Graphic on the sidelines that the graduands, based on their expertise, could take up technician jobs in the Rlg’s assembly plant and at its service centre, or do mobile phone sales in their designated vendor kiosks and also render after sale service to clients.