As part of the efforts to curb the rising unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has equipped over 200,000 Nigerians Nationwide and 15,000 with skills for employability and entrepreneurship in Plateau State under the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP).
The Director-General /Chief Executive of ITF, Sir Joseph Ari, who disclosed this at the closing ceremony of the 2019 National Industrial Development Programme (NISDP) said the programme was one of the numerous skills acquisition intervention programmes introduced and implemented by the Fund to facilitate the achievements of the Federal Government policy on job and wealth creations.
He said the programme focused on skills acquisition to create jobs to reduce the rampant unemployment and breed a new generation of entrepreneurs, in order to transform the economic landscape of the country.
The Director General said the commitment of ITF to skills acquisition was premised in the fact that it remains the most viable and sustainable solution to rising unemployment and poverty that continued to defy the best efforts of governmental and non-governmental approaches.
ALSO READ: EFCC secures 1,266 convictions in 14 months ― Magu
“There countless reasons for us to worry as government and institutions vested with the arduous task of equipping Nigerians with life skills for employability and entrepreneurship. There is no doubt the unemployment has wrought terrible damage on all facets of our national life.
“No reasonable analysis will divorce unemployment from needless incidents of violence that have claimed thousands of lives across the nation. It will equally be difficult to separate rising criminality and harmful social vices that are being perpetrated by Nigerians because of unemployment and attendant poverty.
He added that Nigeria population that ordinarily should be a resource, may become a problem if the country cannot provide a proportion of the population with a source of livelihood.
In her address, the ITF Jos Area Manager, Khadijatu Sani Mudi, said NISDP was one of the noble initiatives of Industrial Training Fund towards empowering Nigerian youths for self-reliance and skills acquisition.
and then