ABUJA – The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) on Tuesday said it required N300 billion to train two million manpower on various skills annually in the country.
The ITF Director-General, Dr Juliet Chukkas-Onaeko, made this known at the 5th ITF Trainers’ Forum in Abuja.
Chukkas-Onaeko said the agency had the capacity to train over two million Nigerians annually on various skills to boost the national industrial revolution plan of the Federal Government.
She said the agency’s set back was fund, and appealed to its partners and other stakeholders to support this good course which had the capacity to industrialise the country.
The theme of the forum is “The Place of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the Actualisation of the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP)’’.
The director-general said the train the trainers conference was not only apt but timely, given the current thrust of the present management to pursue a 4-point training agenda.
She said the agenda were training of two million Nigerians annually, the full automation of ITF business processes, ensuring 100 per cent payment of training contributions, and ensuring 100 per cent implementation of SIWES.
“We are all aware of the unemployment situation in the country. [eap_ad_2] “We are equally aware of Mr President’s commitment to transform the national economy through accelerated industrialisation using the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) and the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) as vehicles.
“It is our mandate to supply the manpower requirement of the NIRP and NEDEP in collaboration with other agencies of government like Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and others,’’ she said.
According to her, the Bank of Industry (BOI) is a vital partner, which ITF can leverage on its financial muzzle to achieve some of the set goals.
“Our desire to entrench this collaboration, however, gave rise to the introduction of the National Skills Development Programme (NISDP).
“Through the NISDP, we have trained 37,000 Nigerians from the 36 states of the federation and FCT, which is however, a far low if the manpower requirements of the NIRP are to be met.
“I believe that this forum will like others in the past generate the ideas and innovations that will lead to the achievement of all we have set out to do,’’ she said.
Earlier, Mr John Enyi, Director of Training, said the forum was not an annual ritual, but equipped to proffer solutions to the country’s manpower deficit.
NAN reports that the forum attracts hundreds of senior officials of ITF, stakeholders and trainers from across the country. (NAN)[eap_ad_3]
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