By Godfrey AKON
The Industrial Training Fund, ITF, says it has trained and graduated 54,603 highly skilled technicians in collaboration with the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, under their Technical Skills Development Project, TSDP, which began in 2010.
Speaking at the ITF-NECA TSDP Stakeholders Dialogue Forum and Outstanding Trainee Award, on Thursday in Abuja, the Director General of ITF, Dr. Afiz Ogun, said the trainees are either employed in corporate organizations or have become entrepreneurs in their chosen fields.
Ogun said the ITF and NECA entered into a partnership, which gave birth to the TSDP, a joint initiative of the two agencies with the objectives to promote availability of manpower with appropriate technical and vocational skills to meet the identified needs of industries and the Nigerian economy.
According to him, the ITF-NECA Technical Skills Development Project was initiated to tackle the problems of unemployment and skills mismatch in the country, while expressing joy that in the last 12 years of its existence, the TSDP has achieved significant milestones, despite the numerous financial and socio-cultural challenges it faced and continues to face.
“The TSDP adopts the “brown-fields” approach for the skill acquisition programmes, which entails leveraging existing facilities for training.
“In this regard, the Project uses training facilities of NECA member companies (also called Participating Organisations), ITF Industrial Skills Training Centres, and other selected Organisations.
“Also involved in the project are selected Federal and State Technical Colleges from all the six geo-political zones and the FCT, which have been provided with the requisite equipment, tools for practical work and workshops- either newly constructed or renovated- to bring them in sync with laid down standards for all facilities that are used for Project.
“From a mere six (6) participating organizations that trained and graduated 285 highly skilled Technicians, when it commenced in 2010, the Project today boasts of supporting fifty-nine (59) Participating Organisations and Technical Colleges with machinery and technical equipment which graduated 54,603 highly skilled Technicians that are either employed in corporate organizations or have become entrepreneurs that are employing others,” he said.
