Henry Uche
As claims and counter- claims about the employability of Nigerian graduates continue to dominate debates across board, concerned individuals and corporate bodies as well as some Nigerian graduates and undergraduates have vowed not to let the matter be swept under the carpet. Among those bothered about this ugly trend and unfortunate identity tag on Nigerian graduates is the Industrial Training Fund (ITF). Director General of ITF, Mr Joseph Ari, while speaking at the 10th interactive session of ITF put together by its Apapa Office, said in line with mandate to provide quality training, promoting and regulating training standards in all sectors, evaluating and certifying vocational skills empowerment his leadership would not fail deliver on its responsibilities.
The DG represented by Deputy Director/ Area Manager, Lekki Area Office, Usman Sanni Daji, stressed that ITF has adopted multidimensional approaches to enhance human capital development across diverse sectors of the economy., He said that ITF reviewed vision focuses on training and retaining corps of professional staff in different institutional settings at both local and international frontiers to meet the emerging challenges of innovatively supporting the manpower development needs of our clients with expert knowledge and skills for productivity improvement.
Consequently, he said “we have unveiled a number of strategic intervention programmes code named “Quick wins”, Medium and Long term goals to equip Nigerians with diverse employability and entrepreneurial skills. Prominent among these ongoing Skills programme are: the National Industrial Skills Development Programme(NISDP); Women Skills Empowerment Programme (WOSEP); Skills Training and Empowerment Programme for the Physically Challenged (STEP – C); Passion to Profession(P2P); Agri-preneurship Training; ITF/NECA Collaboration;Technical Skills Development Programme (TSDP) amongst others.
“In order to enhance the quality of Nigeria’s technical and vocational skills, the Fund procured and installed first of its kind State-of-the Art Mechatronic Equipment at the Model Skills Training Centre (MSTC) in Abuja to provide Two (2) years skills training course on Facility Maintenance Technology, Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Computer Networking, Mechatronics (Automation/Autotronics) and Culinary Skills in collaboration with Institute of Technical Education, Educational Services (ITEES) of Singapore”.