By Chiamaka Okechukwu, Lagos.
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Lagos State Office has flagged off a Graduate Attachment Programme, GAP, for unemployed graduates residing in the State under the Special Public Works Department
The agency’s efforts are in a bid to create employment, add value to the lives of citizens, increase the standard of living as well as ensure sustainable economic growth in the State.
The Acting Lagos State Coordinator of the NDE, Mrs. Elizabeth Omatsola while speaking at the ceremony in Lagos, said that the essence of the Graduate Attachment Programme (GAP) is one wherein the unemployed graduate participants are given relational work experience under different business outfits which are not limited to public offices, cooperate entities and private organizations.
Omatsola explained that the primary goal is to secure permanent employment for the selected participants in the organisation.
The Acting State Coordinator further said that “the Special Public Works department seeks to identify and exploit employment opportunities that abound in the public works sector, by organising the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled persons that are unemployed to carry out utility, environmental, infrastructural development and sanitation works. It is designed to train in skills geared towards making the trainees themselves resilient and employers of labor.”
She explained that the NDE has carefully selected fifty-five (55) participants that will be absorbed into various organisation’s for a period of three (3) months.
“The Graduate Attachment Programme will avail the participants the opportunity of getting work experience which will be an added advantage in getting a job in the future. It will also ensure they get some income in the course of the job. The participants will also be able to sell themselves so as to be properly absorbed into the organisation,” Omatsola said.
She, therefore, urged the beneficiaries to make the best use of the provision made available to them by the Federal Government and be good ambassadors of the NDE.
