Minister of Youth and sports Development Mr Sunday Dare has declared that the Federal Government is totally committed to the development of the Youth as a panacea to national economic growth.

Speaking in Lagos during an interactive session with Youth Correspondents, Mr. Dare said “Part of the ways we have also responded on youth development is pursuing our guiding document, which is the National Youth Policy with a five-year plan and commitment to providing employment and opportunities for our youths, particularly political participation.

“The issue of youth development stands on three legs: education, employment and entrepreneurship.

“Education is now beyond tertiary certificates. In today’s economy, vocational/technical education is crucial to the other two, generating employment and turning our youths into entrepreneurs. And that is our focus as a ministry in conjunction with other agencies on vocational and technical training,”

He reeled out some of the youth programmes undertaken by the Digital Skills, Employability, Entrepreneurship and Leadership (DEEL) initiative to include 75,000 youths trained this year via an online platform in partnership with IBM, another round of training in partnership with AFDB called coding for employment across 15 centres in the country, and a training in conjunction with Microsoft and Google to train young business owners on management skills, among others.

Mr Dare assured that “Most of the initiatives will impact positively on the youth with long term effect on their wellbeing and development. We have identified key developmental elements that if properly harnessed will change the trajectory. “