From Gyang Bere, Jos
The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has signed a pact with a Garman company, Rohde & Schwarz to scale up Nigeria’s human capital and resource development to grow the country’s economy.
The Director General of ITF, Joseph Ari who led the consultants, Prof. Paschal Anosike and Prof. Klaus Schueider on inspection of facilities at ITF Model Skills Centre Abuja and at the Centre of excellence, Bukuru, Jos said the gesture will boost man power development, industrial revolution and entrepreneurship across the country.
He explained that the partnership is in line with the unveiled ITF policy direction known as the reengineering skills through National Apprenticeship and Traineeship System which secured the agency a partnership with a German company.
Ari said ITF experienced in Germany has been laudable and result oriented, saying it was from there that the Fund created Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme which encouraged their partnership with Rohde and Schwarz, a household name company.
He explained that ITF has been talking with Rohde and Schwarz since November 2022 and the company came to Nigeria, and was hosted by Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, who put a stamp of Authority, signifying the acceptance and suitability of the company for the partnership and to demostrat that Federal Government is truly behind ITF.
“We are very hopeful that this partnership will be beneficial to the two parties. For us as ITF, we believe that this partnership will go beyond ITF, it will be partnership that will be beneficial to the people of Nigeria and the economy of Nigeria as a nation.
“This is because at the end of the day, the direction is the development of the human resource of our dear country and we have a huge chunk of that. We believe that the partnership will learn credence to the expertise of our staff through training and retraining in Germany through Rohde and Schwarz.
“They have gone round and seen our workshops, alot of our workshops across the country are yearning for equipments and we believe that the partnership will give vain to Rohde and Schwarz coming to our aid in the area of equipments to further boost equipment’s presence in our workshops across the length and breadth of Nigeria.”
He said that if ITF training centres are equipped at the end of the partnership, most Nigerians would be equipped with requisite skills for entrepreneurship, for employability to create wealth and jobs.
Ari informed that the partnership will also place ITF among global best practices in terms of the training trend, adding that whatsoever Rohde and Schwarz would be doing at the international level, the get way to Nigeria will be through ITF.
A Consultant with Rohde and Schwarz and professor of Knowledge Management and entrepreneurship, Paschal Anosike described ITF as a well run Federal Government Agency saddled with the responsibility of skills development.
“ITF is a well run organization and Rohde and Schwarz is quite selective in who they actually partner with. But we have look at what ITF is doing in terms of not just in leadership but in governance, strategic mandate and statutory function for which they have been established for so many years.
“By global standard, ITF is a very well run agency and Rohde and Schwarz is equally interested and committed in partnering with ITF just as the agency is committed to doing that. In the immediate term, there are things we have established, they are interested in scaling internship which ITF is equally known for in Nigeria, working with Universities and employers.
“There is a very active plan that will take Nigerians internationally to launch that international apprenticeship scheme, although that will be a pilot, but it will resonate strongly not just across the country but globally; so countries in Africa, like South Africa, Kenya will be looking to ITF to understand how to do it.
“This will also scale up their institutional capacity and not just human capacity but we are also interested in looking at the known human capacity. We ought to have the right equipments that key into new technology to boost not just their knowledge architecture, and not just how they have acquired that knowledge but how that knowledge is exploited for not just to the benefits of young people but obviously in terms of the policy direction that ITF has articulated.” He stated.