Senior management of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) on Tuesday visited the
NCDMB Skills Acquisition Centre, Kano, venue of the training of 1000 youths on GSM repair, maintenance and software development.
The team also visited NCDMB GSM Repair & Maintenance Centre, located at GSM Phone Tech Hub, Yankaba, Kano, where the Board has rented shops for the beneficiaries of the training programme.
The Board’s team was led by the Director of Legal Services, Barr. Mohammed Babangida Umar and the Project Lead & General Manager, Research, Statistics and Development, Mr. Abdulmalik Halilu.
Some other staff members included Chief Officer, Corporate Communications, Mr. Obinna Ezeobi and Mr. Nyoki Ita of the Corporate Communications Department.
The visit is a prelude to the formal graduation of the trainees scheduled for Monday, 21st Dec 2020.
The NCDMB Skills Acquisition and Training Programme was started in August 2019 and the success of the scheme has led it being replicated in Yobe State and two other locations.
Among the 1000 youths that participated in the programme in Kano, 800 were groomed on hardware repairs while 200 specialised on software aspects of the training, which focussed on various brands of phones.
They also learnt entrepreneurship skills and underwent practical sessions and applications development.
The classroom part of the programme was designed for 8 weeks; the apprenticeship stage, 8 weeks while the mentoring stage was planned for another 8 weeks.
The Project Lead, Mr. Abdulmalik Halilu explained that the programme was conceived with an end – to – end model. As part of the strategy, NCDMB paid the stipends to the trainees for the duration of the programme and secured shops for them at the GSM Repairs Market for two years.
The Board also provided the trainees with starter packs and registered them into cooperative societies. The platform will enable them to access further institutional and financial assistance from the state government and other groups.