THE Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has called on state governments to help reduce high unemployment in the country by sponsoring additional trainees for the fund’s skill acquisition programmes.
Director General/Chief Executive, ITF, Mr Joseph Ari, who made this appeal in Ibadan, called on South West governors to be more keen on collaboration with ITF in human capacity development, vocational and technical skills training.
Noting a lower level of participation of South West governments compared to their Northern counterparts, Ari said such collaboration will entail payment of monthly stipends to trainees, payment of master craftsmen allowance, provision of start-up kits to trainees.
Though Ari, represented by Ibadan Area Manager of ITF, Mrs Funke Olorunleke, said the fund trained 300,000 people in 2018, he pointed out that the collaboration with state governments and Organised Private Sector (OPS) will help address financial constraints faced in providing trainees starter packs.
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Pointing to the 2018 report of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), he noted despite unemployment, there was a need for skills development for employability in 925 trades which were found to be difficult and hard to fill.
He listed those sectors as housing, petrochemical, auto industry, textiles, steel, leather, IT and services while noting that the ITF had introduced Information Technology Skills Empowerment Programme (ISEP) to equip Nigerian youths with needed ICT skills for job creation.
In spite of unemployment, he decried that although vacancies existed in several sectors, they were filled by non-Nigerians because Nigerians lacked requisite soft skills.
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