News: SURE-P Warns Interns Against Sharp Practices

SURE-P - Participants in the Graduate Internship Scheme of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme have been warned against abusing the opportunities provided by the scheme.

The warning was given by the Director, GIS, Mr. Peter Papka, at the opening of a three-day orientation programme and employability training for graduate interns and firms held in Lagos.

Papka told the interns and their employers to guard against any act that constituted an abuse of the opportunity provided by the scheme.

He said some interns had attempted to defraud their organisation by trying to get paid without working while some firms and their representatives had attempted to connive with interns to derail the objectives of the scheme.

The GIS director also cautioned the firms and organisations under which the interns were observing their training not to demand any form of payment from them, adding that offending party would be dealt with.

Moreover, the Chief Operating Officer of Supreme Management Training and Consultancy Services Limited, that conducted the orientation/training programme, Dr. Olubisi Fasuyi, ascribed the inability of most graduates of tertiary institutions in the country to secure jobs to the absence of required soft skills needed for the employee to cope within the workplace.

Fasuyi said that the problem, typical of higher education in Nigeria and some other countries, is that life skills such as emotional intelligence, problem solving, decision-making, proactive skill-set, reflective and critical thinking, interpersonal and teaming skills, effective communication, sound character, integrity and high level personal ethics, self-esteem, self-discipline, managerial skills, and abilities that translate ideas to desired results are rarely taught as part of higher education curriculum.

Fasuyi said organisations around the world recognised that, in order to gain a competitive advantage, they also needed to make sure their team knew how to handle themselves at work and how to relate with their clients and peers.

According to her, the phenomenon of graduate unemployment, as it is being experienced, constitutes a peculiar problem to labour market and the general economic development of Nigeria.

She noted that employers wanted their graduate recruits to be competent technically in their chosen field adding that they also wanted them to come out of school well equipped with complementary life skills and with a measure of post-graduate professional experience.

She however, wondered where a graduate would acquire experience when he/she had never been offered employment, internship or volunteer opportunities.

Source: Punch