NCDC youth programme graduates not sure of their future

THE National Capital District’s urban youth employment project does not have a sustainability programme for graduates, a stakeholder meeting has been told.
The programme aims to graduate more than 17,500 youths after five years.
According to the Education Department, the programme  will “let youths choose to help themselves by putting their skills to good use or choose otherwise”.  
A stakeholder asked if there were any plans to monitor the work progress and competency of youths after their training.
“NCDC is not a training institute to continue training them but is committed to help the youths to gain employment and live good lives,’’ a education spokesman said.
“They will choose to use their skills to help themselves or they will not – it is up to them.”  
The programme covers basic literacy and numeracy training, on-the-job training and job placement for graduates.    
The meeting, the first for the project, was held last Monday in Port Moresby between the NCDC as the facilitator, World Bank as co-sponsor and business firms, civil groups and the Technical Education Vocational Training as training providers.
The meeting was to identify ways to improve the training programme before it starts in March.
It was pointed out that a daily migration of youths into Port Moresby could affect the targeted youths in the city.
It may mean that the funding of more than K1m over five year is insufficient because there are more youths in the city.
The training is open to all youths who will go through identification and screening first.