HOME MANAGEMENT AND VOCATIONAL SKILLS ACQUISITION: REMEDY TO YOUTH RESTIVENESS AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper surveys home management and vocational skills acquisition as panacea to insecurity and youth restiveness in Nigeria. Youth restiveness, occasioned by unemployment, income inequality, and political exclusion has led to the rise of youth protest groups whose activities sometimes turn violent. The violent protests constitute security breaches, manifested through insurgency, kidnapping, crude oil bunkering communal clashes, murder, armed robbery and farmer-herder clashes. Most of these crimes are perpetuated by the youth. The paper argues that effective and sustained home management, as a key aspect of Home Economics Education, and vocational skills acquisition, have the tendency to deal with youth restiveness and insecurity. This is because when the home is properly positioned where families make informed decisions, monitor their children’ activities, as well as instill in the children discipline and moral values, they are not likely to constitute any security challenge in their later years. Equally, skills acquired by the youth will enable them to utilize those skills by setting up food canteens, cosmetics, barbing and hairdressing salons, as well as electrical and electronic repair shops. They will also be able to find employment, as fashion designers, digital marketers and tailors. Unwillingness of the youth to acquire skills, their get-rich-quick syndrome, as well as poorly equipped training environment and parents’ continuous absence from the home are challenges to acquiring vocational skills as a means to curbing youth unemployment and restiveness. The paper recommends, among others, that the youth in Nigeria need to renounce violence, deradicalize and pursue functional skills training, either formally or informally, and in spite of growing need to work, parents need to pay attention to managing the home. This requires effective planning, supervision and effective decision making.