Debbie Mishael Consulting in partnership with ICITP, South Africa is creating a paradigm shift with regards to industry technology skill and knowledge requirement with the introduction its unique technology skills empowerment and work opportunities programme.

Ifeanyi Ogochukwu, an ICT expert and the chief technology strategist, Debbie Mishael Consulting, is drawing from his wealth of experience having managed mission safety critical ICT environments and also administered, managed and mentored over 1500 interns from Universities and Polytechnics in Nigeria and abroad to now create this critical skill technology empowerment programme.

Registration is currently ongoing with available spaces rapidly being taken up. As a precursor to the take off the programme free Critical Skills Information Sessions will hold in Abuja on September 9 and Lagos September 16 at the Gantt Place and Light House Hub respectively.

Commenting on the programme meant for IT professional, graduate or non IT graduate desiring to work abroad and others who desire an International cross border professional certification with global recognition that comes with immense benefits of special skills, Engr. Ogochukwu said, “In today’s technological world we live in, do business and have pleasure, the critical requirement for being ahead of the curve and being globally competitive is having the necessary discriminating competencies- skills, knowledge and experience. This is lacking to a large extent in today’s Nigeria particularly amongst the mass of youths who are in the job market. Nigeria’s struggle to create jobs is getting worse”.

Also, new data published by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicates the unemployment rate at 14.2% in the last quarter of 2016, up from 13.9% in the preceding quarter.

“It’s the ninth consecutive quarter that the unemployment rate in Nigeria has increased. It is the highest jobless rate since 2009 as the number of unemployed went up by 3.5 million to 11.549 million while employment rose at a slower 680.8 thousand to 69.6 million. The labour force increased by 4.194 million to 81.151 million and those detached from it declined by 625.7 thousand to 27.439 million. The unemployment rate was higher for persons between 15-24 years old (25.2 percent), women (16.3 percent) and in rural areas (25.8 percent).

“The essence of this very disruptive technology human capital development programme is to empower the teeming mass of serious minded unemployed youths within our capacity to have the essential discriminating competencies that will make global marketable and competitive with the opportunity to work abroad”, he said in an interview with Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

The programme, he added, will cover business, entrepreneurial and technology skills, hands-on within the ‘Work Integrated Learning Framework’ and globally recognised certifications such ‘IT Passport Examination certification’ which has three categories and IT Certified Professional certification. Appropriate examinations will be conducted via Pearson Vue global testing platform.

“Get ready for global certification; work ready status and critical skills work permit”, he said promising potential attendees to the precursor events.