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By Adewale Banjo
Chairman, Technical and Vocational Education and Training United Kingdom Nigeria Limited (TVET-UK-NIGERIA LIMITED), Adeleke Adefala, has hailed the Director General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Abubakar Fikpo for his efforts in boosting skill acquisition trainings and entrepreneurship development progammes, which feed into the federal government’s blueprint of deepening job creation.
Adefala made the commendation recently when his organisation paid a courtesy visit on the NDE management at its headquarters in Abuja.
The TVET boss called on the federal government to involve NDE wholly in finding solutions to employment challenges in Nigeria. He said President Bola Tinubu has included skills development in the educational loan fund policy of the government.
The NDE, he noted, should be allowed to play a pivotal role in skilling up the federation seamlessly, while the Federal Government should see to the area of financing.
Furthermore, Adefala said Tertiary Education Trust Fund, in its ongoing establishment of skills centres in the Nigerian universities, should also work with the NDE because of its experience on skills development over the years and its presence in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
He said TVET was in NDE to cement its collaboration proposal which started in April 2023.
Responding, Fikpo thanked the TVET chairman for his passion for skills development.
He said educational certificates today, though important, hardly provide jobs or put food on the tables for the average Nigerian, saying the only way out is to engage in vocational, technical and entrepreneurship development for the citizenry of Nigerians, especially the youths.
According to Fikpo, joblessness and crime are siamese twins often joined together by poverty. NDE, he said, is synchronising job creation programmes with available funds, financial linkages and bankable proposals to ascertain success.
The director general said it is heartwarming that the present administration has weave employment policy around skills acquisitions for blue collar jobs.
NDE, he said, has keyed into the job creation policies and commitments of the Federal Government by providing array of environmentally friendly marketable schemes with over hundred skills acquisition centres across the federation.
He expressed the willingness of the NDE to collaborate with TVET-UK-Nigeria Limited towards combating mass unemployment in Nigeria.
