Evaluating the Contribution of Skills Acquisition Centres to Youth Empowerment in Kano State

This study evaluates the contribution of government-operated skills acquisition centres to youth empowerment in Kano State, North West Nigeria. Skills acquisition centres represent a major policy instrument in Nigeria's youth empowerment strategy, providing short-term vocational training in trades such as tailoring, phone repair, welding, and cosmetology. Despite substantial investment, empirical evaluations of their impact on youth economic outcomes are rare. A mixed-methods design is employed, combining a survey of 250 centre graduates from 10 skills acquisition centres in Kano Municipal, Tarauni, and Nasarawa local government areas with semi-structured interviews and records analysis. Economic empowerment indicators measured include employment status, income change, business formation, and skills confidence. Propensity score matching controls for selection bias in comparing graduate and non-graduate economic outcomes. Findings are expected to reveal moderate empowerment effects, concentrated among graduates who received posttraining business support, with weaker outcomes for those trained without follow-up. The study also examines differences across trade areas and gender groups. Recommendations include integration of enterprise development support with all skills training programmes, post-graduation mentoring for six months, and centre performance evaluation linked to graduate outcome data. This study provides evidence-based assessment of skills acquisition centre effectiveness and contributes to youth empowerment policy research in North West Nigeria, with implications for national skills training programme design. Keywords: skills acquisition centres, youth empowerment, Kano State, vocational training, economic outcomes