Speaking at a press conference at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja on Tuesday, Sir Joseph Ari, the Director-General said the programme was part of his six-year vision he initiated after his appointment in t2016. He said the programme would run till 2022.
The key objective of the technical vocational skills programme, according to Ari, was to impart technical and vocational skills to Nigerians, while aggressively addressing service challenges, tackle infrastructural deficits, and create wealth through skill acquisition for Nigerian enterpreneurs.
The ITF boss said, “Two years into its implementation, I am pleased to say that it has exceeded expectation by training over 150,000 Nigerians, who are today earning sustainable livelihood as paid employees, or as entrepreneurs that are employing others”
The key programmes where the entrepreneurs benefited, according Ari include: “National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), the women skills Empowerment Programme (WOSEP), Passion to Profession Programme (P2PP), the Skills Training Empowerment Programme for the Physically Challenges (STEPP-C) and the Construction Skills Empowerment programme, among others”
In addition, Sir Joseph, a Knight of Saint Mulumba, said the Federal Government would train about 13,000 Nigerians within five months to improve human capital development, wealth creation and skill acquisition.
He gave further breakdown, saying “11,000 youths to be trained under the NISDP; 360 women under women skills empowerment programme; 75 youths in air-conditioning and refrigeration-training on wheels.”
He said the scheme also involved, “50 youths in designing and garment making; 120 youths to be trained under the skillls training and empowerment programme for the physically challenged people; and 150 persons to be trained under the post-harvest Techniques and Project Development Programme.”
Accordingly, he noted further that, “150 persons are to be trained in Aqau-culture/fish farming,150 persons to be trained in manure production;150 persons to be trained in crop production and 150 persons to be trained in poultry farming”.
It would be recalled that ITF had in conjuction with the United Nation’s Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), conducted a national skills gap assesment in six priority sectors of the Nigerian economy namely agribusiness, metal and solid minerals, oil and gas, construction, light manufacturing and services industry.
The report, however indicated that despite rising unemployment rate in the country, 925 trades were either difficult or hard to fill Nigeria’s labour market.
The breakdown showed that 19.7% vacancies were in the housing sector, 13.9% in petro-chemical sector, 14.7% in other goods,11.4% in the auto industry,10.3% in textiles,10.1% in steel, 8.9% in the services sector and 3.3% in the leader industry.
The report also noted that 15.7% of all hard to fill vacancies were due to lack of technical skills,11.8% due to lack of basic IT skills, while 9.2% and 7.5% of the vacancies were due to the lack of requisite soft skills.The ITF director-general said the agency was working closely with the organised private sector to ensure that needs identified in the sector were wholistically addressed through its technical, vocational and skills programme which offers hands-on capacity for entrepreneurs in line with 21st century demands.