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Kaiser eyes jobs in new marriage with University of Lagos

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In a first-of-its-kind type partnership, the Kaiser Foundation for Social Development (KFSD) has inked a deal with the University of Lagos to provide well-rounded education for students studying construction-related degree courses at tertiary level, with a view to boosting their employability skills and creating jobs for them.
The collaboration between KFSD- the non-governmental organisation arm of private-owned indigenous construction company- Construction Kaiser- and the University of Lagos, will foster growth and competitiveness in the Nigerian construction industry value chain and contribute to reversing the tide of youth unemployment rate in Africa’s most populous nation which as at end-2017 was a mammoth 33.1 percent.
That rate is lower than the Africa average of around 40 percent but is bettered by the EuroZone’s 17.7 percent; United Kingdom’s 12 percent; Canada’s 11.1 percent; India and South Korea’s 12.9 percent and 9.6 percent respectively; and the United States’ 9 percent.
“If we don’t do this, our children will not have jobs,” Igbuan Okaisabor, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive officer of Kaiser Group, said during an exclusive interview with Business Day.
“We see this partnership with Unilag as a way of making the youths ready for the work place and we also seek to fund the research that can solve our local problems in the construction industry like how to deliver cost effective housing units to ensure more Nigerians have access to affordable housing,” Okaisabor said.
Nigeria’s housing deficit was put at 17 million units as far back as 2014, and for a population expanding at an average of 3 percent annually, that deficit could be as high as 18 million today, assuming supply has been somewhat stagnant.
The aim of KFSD and Unilag’s partnership is to promote an overall economic and developmental growth of Nigeria through four initiatives, the first of which is providing scholarships to deserving alumni of their Teenage STEM Summer Construction program; who have been admitted to the University of Lagos but are unable to afford tuition. The scholarship will cover tuition, books and living expenses for the period of their construction-related course of study.
Second is through internships, whereby KFSD enlists the Alumni and other qualifying students of the University of Lagos who are engaged in construction-related courses into its sister companies for their mandatory industrial attachment. This shall be based on agreed criteria, Okaisabor says, and the students would acquire hands-on training on their project sites, with emphasis on safety and quality.
Third is the undergraduate training. 
KFSD shall facilitate trainings for interested UNILAG students studying Construction-related courses on soft skills such as: project management skills, leadership skills, interpersonal skills, team building skills, communication skills, presentation skills, writing (technical and non-technical) skills, etc.
This would help them get ready for the workplace on graduation, and make them more employable, according to Okaisabor.
Finally, there is the Research Collaboration Scheme, wherein KFSD provides funding to the UNILAG’s Construction Industry Development Research Group (“CIDG”), for research aimed at tackling competiveness, sustainability, growth, performance and inclusion among construction industry stakeholders who operate in the formal and informal economy.
Finding a fix for Nigeria’s youth unemployment crisis is never going to happen overnight, but analysts anticipate Kaiser’s partnership with Unilag to clear the path for more private sector contribution towards nipping the growing menace in the bud, without losing sight of the need to address technical on-the-job-training to boost the employability skills of unemployed youths in the construction sector.
Being highly labour-intensive, the construction sector is traditionally the highest employer of labour in some of the most populated countries of the world, from the Asian continent to Europe.
In Nigeria, however, lack of political will, limited access to finance and a penchant for imports constrains the sector, which contributed a paltry 4.04 percent to GDP in the first quarter of 2018 according to NBS data, compared to 21 percent in neighbouring South Africa.
Clearly, there’s work to be done, in positioning the sector to deliver on its potential.
Construction in Nigeria has been in and out of water since 2016, tailing the broader economy into recession in the second quarter of that year, before exiting recession in the first quarter of 2017 after an abysmal 0.15 percent growth was followed by an even more infinitesimal 0.13 percent expansion in the second quarter, according to data compiled by Business Day and sourced from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The fragile rally wouldn’t last. The sector returned to negative ways in the third quarter, contracting 0.48 percent before recording its best performance in eight quarters with a 4.14 percent expansion that abruptly tapered off in the first quarter of 2018, sending the sector back under water with a 1.5 percent contraction.
Despite this, the year 2017 has been a somewhat better year for construction as evidenced by the sector’s 1 percent growth in the full-year compared to a 5.95 percent contraction the year before.
LOLADE AKINMURELE

The post Kaiser eyes jobs in new marriage with University of Lagos appeared first on BusinessDay : News you can trust.

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