The Federal Government is set to open applications for its three million digital skill empowerment programme on Friday.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, disclosed this on Wednesday during a fireside conversation at Moonshot by TechCabal.
He further revealed that the application will be for both trainers and individuals hoping to get technical skills.
He disclosed that the first phase of the programme would be targeted at 30,000 Nigerians. Tijani said, “Starting from this Friday, you will see applications being released for both trainers and those who want to be fellows.”
Recently, the minister in his blueprint outlined a plan to equip three million Nigerians with tech skills over the next four years. He said, “Our commitment to talent development is unwavering. We have set an ambitious goal to train three million early to mid-career technical talents over the next four years.”
While spotlighting Andela’s feat in Nigeria, the minister stated that his plan was feasible. According to him, the ministry intends to start small and then grow big.
He said, “So everything we’re going to do, we won’t start by saying we want to train 3 million people. The approach we are going to take is we are going to start with one per cent of that, in the first zero to three months.”
He continued, “The model will be that we are starting with one per cent of our 3 million target and that is going to run for the first three months. And that one per cent is going to be 30,000 people. It sounds like a lot. But one thing we’ve also done is if you take the 36 states of the country and you break down that 30,000.