Several
reports on the youth development and employment generation have been laced
with various statistics and strategies on how to get the youths on pivotal
development tracks in the last few years. Some of these reports have documented
issues facing the youths in Osun State.
According
to available statistics, Osun has over 2 million youths with the projection
that each local government in the state has an average of 65,394 youths. The 2
million population signifies 59.3% of the entire population in the state. Evidences
have equally shown that the problems facing the youths would not be resolved
holistically without providing necessary
incentives for the youths to enable them engage in activities perceived
as less important in solving their problems.
These
evidences have surfaced and still emerging from different scholars and
organisations working on the youth capacity development for the improved economy
in the state. Despite this, rhetorics have continued to trail the development
of sustainable programmes and initiatives on the youth development. On
several fora, the former governors and the current governor, Alhaji
Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola have reiterated government’s commitment to elevating
youths in the state to be at par with others in the country.
These
and other factors motivated, Rasheed Adebiyi, a University Don with the
Fountain University, Osogbo to organise first issues-driven Skillup and Meetup event
on January 18, 2020, which had Mutiu Iyanda, our co-founder and Abideen
Olasupo, a serial entrepreneur as facilitators.
For
over 4 hours, the duo engaged the participants on how to discover opportunities
and pitching their ideas to venture capitalists and other investors. Throughout
the programme, it was issues-driven as it was stated during the publicity
period. From the facilitators and panelists to the participants, issues affecting
the youths were discussed and various solutions emerged.
While
making his presentation, our co-founder identified factors contributing to the lack
of appropriate skill up programme for the youths in the state from two sides.
According to him, youth skills development and empowerment have over the years
being driven by the politicians for the purpose of seeking electoral value
during the election period. He added that lack of sustainable human capacity
development programmes and policy inconsistency are also impacting the process
of learning, relearning and unlearning skills in the state.
These are mostly
from the stakeholders side. On the youth side, he stated reliance on political
structure and politicians, lack of genuine youth advocates and traps in
decision making as core issues denying the youths the needed skills for
personal and societal growth.
The
most issues on the youth side, according to our co-founder, are traps in their
decision making, which have been established by scholars at the Harvard
Business School. In the course of researching for his presentation, he realised
that most youths in the state are suffering from analysis paralysis, not
leaving comfort zone, repeating past mistakes, seeking information that
supports existing preference to discount opposing information and an overestimate
of the accuracy of the future.
To
overcome these traps, he recommended that the youths need to be aware of various
indices of the traps and work towards eliminating them by seeking helps from
the right people at the appropriate time. Going forward, he encouraged the
youths to think, see and act entrepreneurially by developing the right mindset
to opportunities discovery and develop the right behaviours towards capturing
values in the identified opportunities.
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