The Lagos State Government, Thursday announced the opening of its website to register applicants for the 2017 edition of Ready.Set.Work (RSW) scheme. The scheme which is an entrepreneurship and employability initiative designed to equip final year students of tertiary institutions in Lagos with the right skill set to be of value to themselves and society. 

Special Adviser to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh, made the announcement at a news conference and said all interested applicants would be able to access  www.readysetwork.com.ng from June 16. Training will run from July 1 to September 16, 2017. 

The beneficiaries of the scheme would be students of these tertiary institutions;  Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Lagos State College of Health Science, Lagos State Polytechnic, Lagos State University, Michael Otedola College of Education and the University of Lagos.

Out of the 12, 000 students picked, 2,000 final year students would be selected for the training at the three designated centers, while the remaining 10,000 would be selected from students in their penultimate year at the institutions and trained through the online platform and also registered for the RSW Academy.

He said: “ The vision of the RSW is that every graduate from a tertiary institution in Lagos must have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to gain meaningful employment or be self-employed and our plan is to train all graduates in tertiary institutions through the RSW.” He also said the beneficiaries of the scheme would be selected to participate only on competence and would be trained for 13weeks on labor market, mindset reorientation, 21st-century skills, entrepreneurship, employability skills and teacher track.

Answering questions on how sustainable the scheme would be, and also accommodating other tertiary institutions, Bank-Olemoh said plans were underway to integrate the RSW into the education curriculum of the State, and also expand the modules as well as the benefiting institutions.

Sarunmi Oluwafemi and Dada Samuel who emerged as the overall winners of the pitch competition in 2016, walked away with N6million seed funding and N100, 000 monthly working capital for six months, while the second and third place winners also got N500, 000 and N250, 000 respectively with N100,000 working capital for six months.

Itunuoluwa