Nigeria to boost job creation, health care, says VP Osinbajo

NIGERIA

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is set to boost job creation and health care, aimed at enhancing human productivity especially for the teaming youths.

Osinbajo stated this recently at the graduation ceremony of Senior Executive Course 41 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), held in Nigeria’s North Central Plateau State.

Supported by the Development Research and Projects Centre under the partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale, the Vice President also described technology as the 4th industrial revolution.

“The first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production, the second used electric power to create mass production. The third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a fourth industrial revolution is building on the third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century”,he added.

He said the N-Power Creative as envisioned by the current administration will stimulate the development of creative and technological skills in young Nigerians in a studio environment with 2D and 3D animation, story-boarding, illustration, script-writing, voice acting and post-production skills.

“In its first year, the programme will train 3,000 young Nigerians. 1,500 young Nigerians from the South West, South-South and South East were in Benin between July and August this year learning these creative skills.

“Another 1,500 from the North East, North West and North Central have undertaken a similar exercise,” he said.

Osinbajo stated that with the global animation industry witnessing major structural changes, companies are outsourcing computer animation jobs in a big way adding that any animation-related production in the United States or Canada is not exclusively produced in that country alone as work is outsourced to many Asian countries like the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and India.

The Vice President explained that Healthcare is another area where technology is revolutionizing value chains adding that the current administration was already in discussions with Nigerian medical experts in diaspora about the use of telemedicine as well as deployment of teaching aids via WiFi enabled or USSD means to train paramedics in far flung rural communities.

Given the country’s limited resources and the current gaps in educational attainment, Nigeria must change both the substance of education that its children receive as well as the methods by which they are educated.

He said this informs the policy in the introduction of a Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) curriculum in primary and secondary schools.