Abstract

The study assessed the operational schemes of the national directorate of employment (NDE), and the relevance of its training programmes to the needs of the trainees. The study adopted the survey design. Precisely, six states in the Southwestern Nigeria were used for the study. The sample comprises of 1, 200 trainees, 420 trainers and 120 ex-trainees selected from a population of 382, 792. The results showed that the NDE had 11 operational schemes and 30 job categories. It also showed that the NDE training programmes met the needs of the trainees as 99.2% of trainees and 98.3% of ex-trainees said that they learnt the jobs they had wanted to learn at the NDE. Furthermore, all the ex-trainees, 120 (100%) said that the jobs they do at present were the ones they learned at the NDE. Results of the study also indicated that the NDE has impacted positively on the previously unemployed Nigerians by providing them with gainful employment (despite the operational challenges observed).

Key words: Training, relevance, needs, trainees, unemployed.