ITF: Appraising Value of Skills Acquisition.

By Chuks Nweze, Enugu

One thing is certain, virtually all the governments in recent times have indicated that the era of white collar or blue collar jobs are fast becoming a rarity because governments cannot provide employment for their teeming unemployed youths, hence the emphasis on skills acquisition for self-reliance as well as self sustainability.  The inability of governments to provide jobs could be hinged on the dwelling economy of the nation which derives its income mainly from the proceeds from an oil economy thereby neglecting other sectors.

The realisation that governments cannot provide the people with the needed employment, have forced governments to encourage its youths to engage in skills acquisition so that they not only engage themselves in meaningful ventures but that they become employers of labour instead of being employed.To achieve this objective, the Federal Government in its foresight in 1971, even Nigeria when Nigeria was still enjoying oil boom, deemed it fit to introduce Industrial Training Fund, ITF, empowered with training youths on different skills so that they become employable and can employ others as well.

Giving an appraisal of ITF’s achievements since its inception at a press briefing in Enugu, Thursday, March 21, 2019 at ITF office, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer, Sir Joseph Ari, pointed out that the Fund has trained over 300,000 Nigerians on various skills and the graduates of such trainings have been engaged in various paid jobs while some of them are employing others having set up their own businesses through the start up packs they were provided with at the end of their training.

The Director General also pointed out that the youths were trained on different trades and vocations that include carpentry, welding and fabrication, fishing, soap making, tailoring and fashion designing, shoemaking and so many other skills that also includes painting, plumbing, etc.

Ari lamented that though Nigeria cannot meet with her teeming unemployed youths, there are various trades and skills that have been neglected in Nigeria that when their needs arise, other nationalities take up such jobs whereas Nigeria has many youths that could have conveniently filled up the vacant positions. For instance, Ari noted that a survey carried out in 2018 by ITF in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO, showed that vacancies that existed in petrochemical industries, automobile, textiles and leather industries, Nigerians could not fill them and recourse has to be sort outside Nigeria.

The DG laments in this manner, “despite our efforts and those of the Federal Government, the National Bureau of Statistics report of the 3rd quarter of 2018 revealed that just as the number of the economically active or working age (15 – 64 years) grew from 110.3 million to 111.1 million, the number of the unemployed equally appreciated from 11.92 million in the first quarter to 13.55 and 15.99 in the second and third quarters.

“This is despite the fact that a Skill Gap Assessment in six priority sectors of the Nigerian Economy, which was conducted by the ITF in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, UNIDO, that was presented to  stakeholders in Abuja in April, 2018 showed that although vacancies existed in all sectors surveyed, they were being filled by persons other than Nigerians, because of the lack of requisite skills.

“Specifically, the report indicated that despite spiraling unemployment, 925 trades were difficult and hard to fill in the country’s labour market.  The breakdown showed that 19.7% vacancies were in the housing sector, 13.9% in petrochemical sector, 14.7% in other goods, 11.4%  in the auto industry, 10.3% in textiles, 10.1% in steel, 8.9% in the services sector and 3.3% in leather industry.

“The report also noted that 15.7% of all hard to fill vacancies were due to lack of technical skills, 11.8% due to lack of basic IT skills, 9.2% due to lack of advanced IT skills and between 9.2% and 7.5% of the vacancies were due to the lack of requisite soft skills,” he laments.

Ari however noted that in order to stem the spiraling unemployment drive in Nigeria, and President Buhari’s job creation efforts, with the  aim to address the specific gaps revealed by the skills gap survey, the ITF came up with a list of implementable programmes for the year 2018 in the area of fish farming, aqua-culture, manure production among others and have thus trained about 300,000 Nigerians with the requisite start-up packs to enable those trained take off in earnest and thus reduce unemployment to the barest minimum.

The DG noted that in spite of their efforts to train people on different skills to stem unemployment, unemployment has continued to be on the increase but they are not relenting and have continue to come up with programmes aimed at imparting more skills for a future tomorrow Nigeria.

“Despite the best efforts of the government at all levels, unemployment has continued to rise. Against this backdrop, therefore, we have resolved to step up our skills acquisition efforts in 2019 so that more Nigerians wioll acquire skills for employablility and enterpreneurship.

“In this regard, we shall therefore expand intake for our existing programmes and introduce new ones.

As an indication of our tempo this year, we have commenced the implementation of an information and communication programme called the Information Technology Skills Empowerment Programme, ISEP.  The programme is designed to equip Nigerian youths with the needed Information and Communication Technology Skills for job creation,” he said.

To encourage the youths to acquire skills, Ari pointed out that all hands should be on deck to make sure that unemployment is reduced to the barest minimum and should not be left to ITF but that state governments, individuals and groups should step up efforts by sponsoring youths to acquire skills for the good of the nation and for themselves as individuals.

“Ladies and gentlemen, with the number of Nigerians that are currently unemployed and going by the population projections, the 300,000 people the Fund has trained in 2018 may appear like a drop of water in the ocean.  It is this regard that  I will seize this opportunity to call on state governments and other stakeholders to sponsor additional trainees for our skills acquisition programmes.  Such sponsorship will entail payment of monthly stipends to trainees, payment of master craftsmen allowance and provision of star-up kits to trainees.

“I also want to stress that tackling unemployment through skills acquisition cannot and should not be viewed as the sole responsibility of the ITF and other agencies of the Federal Government alone.  The cooperation and collaboration of all state governments, the organised private sector, politicians and other stakeholders will be critical for a multiplier effect.  Our doors are, therefore, wide open for collaboration in any aspect of human capacity development and vocational and technical skills training,” he pleaded.