A skill development organisation. Regalo Hope Foundation, has sealed partnership with the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, on practical industrial based skills to enable students navigate their part into the future.

The Founder and Project Director of the Foundation, Chinenye Onuorah stated this in Owerri during the 2025 Youth Development Workshop organised in collaboration with FUTO Career Service Centre and Students Union Government.

She said, “We understand that there’s need to bridge the gap between the academic grades and employable skills. We brought the workshop to the school to proffer knowledge that will make the students navigate their journey into the future to enable them become better persons both in the classroom grades and labour market skills”.

Onuorah pointed out that the quest to expose the students to the digital skills needed outside the school environment becomes necessary given the future holds and requires more than just the academic grades.

“There’s need for access to information that affords the students opportunity to navigate properly with the outside school requirements”. She said

She urged the Federal Government to partner with Imo state to enter into Public Private Partnership especially with youth development organizations to bring more of digital and employability skills to the youths of the state.

The Director, FUTO Career Service Center, Prof. Oforegbunam Ebiringa noted, “There’s a national problem that increases graduate youth unemployment that everyone needs to make efforts to address”.

“The traditional university education system emphasizes on classroom knowledge and distinctions. There’s a disconnect when the students get into the world. You discover that the students are not job ready”.

“Imagine when the university describe a student worthy in character and learning and at the end of the day, the employers of labour describe the graduates employable”.

Ebiringa said the worst description of a graduate is telling him or her that they are employable which is dead end, meaning they have nothing to offer. “That’s why the university came up with the FUTO Career Service Center to bridge the gap between academic grades and employable skills. “There’s need for reorientation to make students better equipped when they graduate”.