The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has said that
no fewer than 80 youths are currently undergoing training on rural agricultural
development at Ikom in Cross River.

Mr Edem Duke, the state’s Coordinator of the NDE, made the
disclosure in an interview on Sunday in Calabar.

Duke said that the youths, who started the training on
Aug.1, would be trained in modern agricultural production, processing and
marketing.

He also said that the training would include life skills,
lectures and preparation of feasibility reports.

Duke said the aim of the scheme was to re-awaken the
interest of youth in agriculture by exposing them to opportunities for
self-employment and wealth creation.

‘’We are encouraging them to practice farming quite
different from the way our parents did it in order to make it more attractive
and profitable,’’ he said.

The NDE coordinator said that the training would last four
months, divided into one month of theoretical training and three months of
practical training.

He said that the beneficiaries would choose an area of
interest and prepare a bankable feasibility report to be submitted to the NDE
at the end of the training.

Duke said he hoped that the training would mark a turning
point in the lives of the trainees in accepting agriculture as an enterprise
for self- reliance.

He advised that the beneficiaries should make the best use of the opportunity provided by the Federal Government by utilising the knowledge learnt from the training programme.

He revealed that the directorate would resettle the trainees
at the end of the training programme.

Duke remarked that various interventions of the directorate’s
training programmes had provided a stop-gap measure aimed at solving the
nation’s unemployment problems.

“This the NDE has done by providing the youths with skills
which, if adequately utilised by the beneficiaries, can make them self-reliant
in their chosen vocations,’’ he said.