By Kamsi Anayo
International Breweries PLC, makers of Hero brand of beer has said that it has set aside N100million university certification seed fund for training in the maiden Hero Apprenticeship Scheme.
Marketing Manager of the company, Mr Dubem Orji made the disclosure at a press conference to unveil the scheme on in Onitsha, Anambra state.
According to him, the company has rebranded Igba-Boi Apprenticeship Scheme to Hero Apprenticeship Scheme.
Orji said the purpose of rebranding the scheme was to do away with the erroneous notion that Igba-Boi, which is an apprenticeship method of Igbo people was derogatory.
“Moreover, our intention is to use the scheme which has been rebranded to fight unemployment, poverty, and you know that poverty is not peculiar to Igbo people alone, but also other parts of Nigeria. That is why we removed the igba-boi and replaced it with Hero apprenticeship.
“What we are trying to do here is a long time commitment that can wipe out unemployment. Here you don’t only learn a skill, but also get the pedestal to do what you learnt, by accessing money from the N100million set aside.
“We have also assembled university scholars who have developed a curriculum for the apprenticeship programme, which is domiciled in several approved higher institutions across the country.”
Hero beer’s brand ambassador, veteran actor, Nkem Owoh; said: “The idea is that as you are doing apprenticeship, you are also dedicating some days that you go to learn, after which you will get certification for studying and also gain knowledge from your master.
“So the derogatory ways people look at apprenticeship will end when you people are able to acquire skills and also get certificate for learning.”
Earlier, Prof Olusegun Sogbesan, the founder of Onitsha Business School (OBS), the consulting institution for the project said about 30 tertiary institutions are affiliated with the Hero Apprenticeship Scheme for the training of apprentices.
He said: “Biblically, the Wise Men came from the east, we should grab this important innovation. It is very important in our lives.”
Sogbesan said that 13 Nigerian universities including Paul University, Awka; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Enugu State University, University of Uyo and Onitsha Business School are amongst the higher institutions in the country coordinating the first phase of the program.
“This is to promote indigenous entrepreneurship. This is an advance state of Igba-Boi in which 300 people were trained and settled each with N500,000 grant not loan.
“This time around in collaboration between the International Breweries PLC and Onitsha Business School, we have developed curriculum in seven subjects. The boys that have been trained in the market places in a particular trade or technical skills can now go to any higher institutions and formalise the trade.
“Most of them have been recommendations from the markets and we then adopted them. We have about 13 universities that also adopted this in the first phase
“We have already coordinated curriculum and it has to be coordinated within the university. IB PLC will pay the universities once they finished assessments and you are selected,” Sogbesan said.
He said that graduates of the scheme would be awarded a Diploma in Apprenticeship, a certificate that they hope would receive recognition in the country.
One of the beneficiaries of Igba-Boi program last year, Mr Peter Okwesilieze, said the program was real, as he can attest to it.
“I was in the Relief Market, Ogbaru then, one of the markets selected in Onitsha by the company. I was selected, participated in the program and one of the ten winners given N500,000 each.
Okwesilieze, a graduate of Economics from Enugu State University of Science and Technology said he is currently into reading.
“Then I was in Relief Market, Ogbaru. It was after my settlement I have have decided to switch to a different line of business now. The program is top notch and it went a long way to help a lot of people, everyone of us that participated in it, got about N500,000 each m,” he affirmed.