Follow Us on Google
The Industrial Training Fund (ITF), has advocated that it is only functional human resource that can translate the country’s economy to sustainable growth and development and not abundance of natural resources.
The Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of ITF, Sir Joseph said this was why the training agency has been doing all in his capacity to provide requisite skills for national transformation that will make the economy one of the largest in the world by 2020.
He said the fund recently launched the National Industrial Skill Development Programme (NISDP) designed to fast track the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), so that the nation can have a pool of readily available skilled manpower in all areas of the economy.
Ari said this over the weekend at the interactive forum with clients of the Lagos Island area office with the theme: “Current Trends in Technological Advancement and Indigenous Manpower Development in a Recovering Economy”, held in Lagos state.
He said the theme was chosen carefully to reiterate the importance of human capital to the realization of business objectives.
On what the Fund is doing to train and retrain the nation’s workforce, he posited that “they have successfully collaborated with national and international bodies in training and development among which are: The Institute of Technical Education Services, Singapore;, the National Service for Industrial Apprenticeship, Brazil; the Crown Agent of London, United Kingdom; Galilee International Management Institute, Israel and a host of others.
“We have also expanded and re-equipped Industrial Skills training centers in Kano and Lagos as well as the model skills training center in Abuja. Our collaboration with NECA in the training of hundreds of youth in various trade areas using training facilities of employers in the organized private sector and ITF under the Technical Skills Development project is ongoing”.
Ari, represented by the Director of ICT, in ITF, Dr Dickson Onuorah, said as the foremost human resource agency in the country, ITF owes it a duty to ensure that the nation has the requisite and competent human resource to drive the economy with both technical and vocational skills which are the platform on which the drive for socio-economic development of the country can be achieved.
Onuorah said the fund will organize a national skills summit next month to tackle the various malaises facing the learning sector with members of the academia present to proffer a way forward for the country
The Area manager, Lagos Island area office, Mr T Jacob said the idea of the forum was to set aside a conducive environment where ITF and clients can interact.
He said the area office will continue to ensure it does its best in the provision and training of skilled personnels for the growth and development of the country.
The Group chief human resources officer of the Dangote group, Usen Udoh, who was the guest speaker said the fund has to do its best to ensure that it effect changes in the academic curricula of the institutions in the country as the education being gotten across all the various levels of the educational sector is flawed and will make the youths unprepared to step into the future of global workforce.
