The Special Adviser to the Governor, Lagos Eko Secondary Education Project, Ms. Ronke Azeez, while addressing the graduands during graduation ceremony held in Lagos last week said that, "It is heart-warming to see the graduation of the first set of students from the academy.
These graduates have been equipped with the world-class skills to build a better future for themselves andto play an integral part in driving the economy of the state forward. The partnership between Lagos Eko Secondary School Education Project and Samsung Electronics is one of quality and excellence".
While appreciating Samsung for maintaining an international standard for the Academy, Ms Azeez appealed to Samsung to double its present enrolment due to the high demand for such skills in Nigeria.
She observed that more qualified technicians are critical to the country's development noting that Nigeria is faced with an urgent need to fill the supply and demand gap that has emerged in the industry for technical skills and the number of students that enter the job market each year possessing these skills.
Also speaking, Managing Director, Samsung Electronics West Africa, Mr. Brovo Kim said, "As Samsung expand into Africa we are striving to not only act ethically, but to positively impact the communities where our consumers live. We believe we will have the greatest impact by connecting our CSR initiatives to our history and core business.
Skilled graduates are key to helping us reach our business goals, providing us with a workforce of technicians and exclusive service experts needed to differentiate Samsung as a quality service-oriented company. With the goal to grow our business on the continent, we also know that we have to sustain our level of innovation. This can only be achieved if we invest in education to facilitate thought-leadership in Africa."
The new graduates are well poised to work in the electronics industry either as employees in repair centres, assembly lines or as independent entrepreneurs.
The academy was launched two years ago by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN, to fast-track employability of African youths into the electronics job market.
Samsung Engineering Academy is a part of the global Samsung Hope for Children Outreach programme, a one-year free training course, which is aimed at improving the quality of technical education in public secondary schools as part of its goal to train10,000 electronics engineers across Africa by 2015.
The pilot phase of Samsung Engineering Academy programmes which had started in South Africa in 2011 is also running in Ethiopia and Kenya with plans to extend the initiative to more African countries by 2015.
The graduating students drawn from Government Technical College, Agidingbi, Ikeja, have successfully completed one year specialized training at the academy.
Accordingly, the students were trained to repair and service modern digital electronic devices such as LCD TV's, Smartphones, refrigerators, air conditioners and laptops among other appliances.
At the graduation ceremony held last week in Lagos, each graduate received a certificate of completion and certificates of achievement were also presented to fourteen students for their academic brilliance.
Meanwhile, the top four achievers were awarded prizes comprising of various Samsung electronics products.
