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Gyang Bere, Jos
The Director General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph N. Ari, has said the fund was equipping Nigerians with technical skills to take over existing vacancies in the country currently being occupied by non-Nigerians. He noted that skill Gap Survey shows that there are vacancies in the area of services, agriculture, construction and transportation where Nigerians don’t have the technical skills to do the job effectively.
Ari disclosed this on Tuesday in Jos, during the 2019 ITF merit award ceremony, held at the ITF headquarters, Jos, Plateau State.
“A skills Gap Survey of six priority sectors of the national economy, which was conducted by the ITF and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) showed that vacancies existed in four sectors; Services, Agriculture, Construction and Transportation that were in some cases being filled by non-Nigerians because of the absence of requisite technical skills locally
“To prepare Nigerians to effectively take over these sectors, beginning from 2016, the Fund initiated a number of skills acquisition programmes particularly targeted at these sectors.
“Through these programmes, thousand of Nigerians who are today, earning sustainable livelihoods as paid employees or as enterpreneurs that are even employing others were equipped with skills in diverse trades.” He said the Fund in 2019 expanded the scope of it’s programmes for the benefits of Nigerians and trained over 11,100 Nigerians across the 36 States of the federation in eight trades areas.
The ITF boss said N2,094,407,000 was disbursed as students and surpervisory allowances in 2019.
“In the year under review, ITF disbursed a N2,094,407,000 as students and supervisory allowances; of this N1,645,454,000 as students allowances to 142,462 students from 325 tertiary institutions and N448, 953,000 was paid out as supervisory allowances.” Ari noted that despite the challenges confronting the Fund, ranging from under appropriations in the face of soaring number of participants as a result of the establishment of new institutions, he said the Fund remains unwavering towards handling the situation.
