Form Teryima Ajijah, Jos
The Director General of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph Ari has suggested to school curriculum developers to include skill acquisition in schools at all levels in Nigeria.
Ari, made the suggestion on Tuesday in Jos, at the media forum of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), organized by Correspondents Chapel.
According to the director general, skills acquisition could help complement unemployment rate in the country, particularly among job seeking youth.
The ITF boss said the mandate of the fund is to create effective manpower for economic development, therefore, the Industrial Training Fund has keyed into the Federal Government policy of lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty, through skills acquisition.
“The plan, which projects the creation of 21 million jobs, with 35 million Nigerians lifted out of poverty, affordable housing for Nigerians and an export-led economy among others and is expected to cost N381 trillion to implement has six focal areas – economic growth and development, infrastructure, public administration, human capital development, social development and regional development,” he stated.
He maintained that: “ITF is striving to meet up with the mandate, establishing it as the leading human capital development institution in Nigeria. We have commenced the process of repositioning our programmes and activities to effectively prepare the nation’s workforce, in line with our mandate of developing a pool of qualified Nigerians to man the public and private sectors of the national economy, as we believe that for this plan to succeed, all Nigerians as individual citizens and as institutions must contribute their bit.”
He stressed further that “our objectives and allocation of resources to ensure our service offerings henceforth, are tailored to driving the actualisation of the human capital element of the national development plan and also prepare Nigerians to fully exploit the plenty benefits of the fourth industrial revolution.”
He informed that “you will recall that on the assumption of office in 2016, the economy was in recession, leading to massive job losses and corresponding increases in poverty. Our initiatives then, particularly the emphasis on skills intervention programmes was borne out of the need to drive the actualization of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (EGRP).”
He stressed that Nigerians need to rise to the reality of dwindling economy saying “beyond job losses, this new reality has come with a new world that is popularly referred to as the VUCA world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Already, across the country today, we are contending with elements of the VUCA world in varying degrees. Daily are reports of acts of criminality that could only have been imagined some few years back amongst other numerous usual challenges that are confronting us as a nation.”
On the remittance of 5 percent of annual budget to the ITF by federal government agencies, the DG noted that the fund is in court with defaulting agencies.
Ari reported that the National Assembly in amending the act establishing ITF, noting that the amendment bill has gone into second reading both at the Senate and the House of Representatives.