admin
Business Correspondent
YOUTHS without five Ordinary Level subjects will go on compulsory vocational skills training from January as the first stage of empowering them, Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Development Minister Francis Nhema has said.
Addressing hundreds of people in Shurugwi on Monday, he said acquiring of hands-on skills and a basic business management know how were the first major steps his ministry would undertake to empower youths who wanted funding for income generating projects.
“My ministry has made it compulsory for all youths without enough Ordinary Level subjects to go on a compulsory training first with effect from January if they want to be funded in their business projects. There will be no excuse for idle minds come January 2014. If the mind is not empowered there is no development and this compulsory process marks the empowerment of the mind. For our country to achieve its goals in the manifesto, the exercise must be taken seriously,” said Minister Nhema.
He said the compulsory training was meant to equip youths with skills to manage their businesses.
He said the programme was open to all who wanted to acquire skills.
Minister Nhema said in Mutare about 70 women without Grade Seven had already registered to acquire various vocational skills including sewing and driving tractors.
He said the vocational skills training would be carried at ward level.
Minister Nhema said a lot of people mainly youths were aspiring to do businesses for which they did not have the required skills. He said some youths had failed to repay the loans given to them in the previous years due to lack of basic skills to run businesses.
Some of the courses to be carried out include farming, sewing, carpentry, fabrication, machine operation, basic computers, machine operating, and basic business management.
Online Reporter