The federal government said it has employed 200,000 graduates as teachers and agricultural extension workers across the country.

This was made known by Laolu Akande, the senior special assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on media, during the second presidential economic communication workshop in Abuja on Friday.

According to Akande, the newly employed graduates would work only for two years.

“We have selected 200,000 graduates out of 500,000. This is the first batch,” the vice presidential spokesman said.

“One hundred and fifty thousand will work as teachers while 50, 000 will work as extension workers.

“Their pay which is 30, 000 per month, will go directly into their account.‎”

He added that the selection process was completed “a couple of weeks back,” but that BVN‎ screening for the candidates had delayed the exercise.

Akande further stated that the new employees would work in their states of residence, and would be supervised by their local governments‎.

He added that another aspect of the social intervention programme, which is conditional cash transfer to the poor, would commence soon.

The present administration had announced the rolling out of series of employment and empowerment strategies in a scheme termed “N-Power”.

This comprises of three major areas: the N-Power Teacher Corps, which would see the federal government employ 500,000 graduate teachers to boost the education sector.

N-Power Knowledge (N-Power Creative, N-Power Tech: hardware and N-Power Tech: software), is aimed at enhancing the ICT know-how of Nigerian youths.

The third step, N-Power Build, is aimed at training 75,000 Nigerian youths to become skilled technicians, artisans and service professionals.