The Federal Government, through its poverty reduction social scheme, National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs), had admitted 510,000 graduates and non-graduates into the N-Power scheme.
Announcing this was the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, in Abuja, noting that the scheme had recruited 1 million beneficiaries for Batch C out of the 6 million applications received.
She explained, “Batch C is divided into 2 streams. Stream C1 of 510,000 beneficiaries and stream C2 for 490,000 beneficiaries. Under Batch C1, a total of 450,000 have been selected to benefit under the Graduate component, while 60,000 beneficiaries will be Non-Graduate beneficiaries.
“It includes the N-Tech Hardware, N-Tech Software and the N-Creative training programmes. Volunteers are strategically attached to carefully selected Places of Primary Assignments (PPAs) where they will provide technical services while also receiving work experience.
“The graduate programme is further sub-divided into N-Teach under which volunteers are trained and attached as assistant teachers in primary schools. The N-Agro volunteers are attached as extension agents to support farmers to obtain better performance, while the N-Health volunteers are trained and attached to work as public health assistants mainly in public Primary Healthcare facilities.
“The N-Health volunteers are also trained to provide basic diagnostic services in the Primary Health Care Development Centres and will teach preventive healthcare to community members including pregnant women, children, families and individuals especially in rural areas.
“The Non-Graduate programme targets youth in the age bracket of 18-35 with a minimum of secondary school education. The Programme seeks to deliver skills to Job/enterprise through accelerated training and certification.
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“They are trained, tooled and transitioned to take up jobs as Electrical Installation Technicians, plumbing and pipe-fitting installers, masons, carpentry and joinery experts, automobile technicians, Agric technicians and hospitality experts.
“The N-Power Knowledge (Hardware, Software and Creative) is also a non-graduate programme and has 3-months and 6 months components for training beneficiaries on foundational, vocational, life and entrepreneurial skills, and also apprenticeship. It has 3 tracks: Hardware training; Software Training and Creative (Animation and Script Writing).
“The first 3-month training component is delivered at 6 selected locations, one in each geo-political zone, to be followed by a six-month internship in the respective States of residence of the trainees.
“The N-Power Volunteer (Graduates) are entitled to a monthly stipend of N30,000 for a period of one year. The Non-graduate beneficiaries are entitled to N10,000 monthly stipends for a period of 9 months. All beneficiaries are granted an appropriate starter pack for their trade to enable them to start their businesses in their chosen trades.
“The N-Power programme deployed an online application and selection strategy to ensures fairness, transparency and credibility in the recruitment process. The programme commenced in the Office of the Vice President back in June 2016 when the application portal was first opened.
“Over 750,000 applications were received, out of which, 200,000 beneficiaries were screened and selected into the first batch called Batch A.
“The portal was opened again in June 2017 where over 2.5 million applications were received, from which another 300,000 volunteers were selected into the programme as Batch B.”
