The Director General, Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Joseph Ari has said the Fund created 20 million jobs for teaming Nigerians in the past two years through entrepreneur and skills acquisitions.
“Despite this clear challenging and no doubt tasking mandate, it vigorously pursued its realisation by training over 20 million Nigerians that today Manning key sectors of the national economy.”
The ITF chief executive, Sir Joseph Ari, made the disclosure Wednesday in Jos, at the Nigeria Union of Journalists press centre, during an interactive session with Journalists.
He also informed that ITF has also within the last two years trained 450,000 Nigerians in entrepreneurship
“More than two years into its implementation, I am delighted to announce to you that, it has exceeded expectation by training over 450,000 Nigerians, who are today earning sustainable livelihoods as paid employees, or as entrepreneurs that are even employing others.”
The ITF boss however lamented that there are huge challenges of unemployment bedeviling young Nigerians who prefer white collar jobs.
“Gentlemen, with the number of Nigerians that are currently unemployed, the 300,000 people the Fund has trained in 2018 may appear like a drop of water in the ocean.”
Added that “despite our efforts and those of the Federal Government, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 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.”
Joseph Ari call on Nigerians to wakeup to the responsibility of creating more jobs through entrepreneurs and skill acquisitions.
“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 ITF chief executive stated core mandate of the fund “ITF Reviewed Vision: Strategies for Mandate Actualisation, the six-year plan was divided into quick wins, short, medium and long-term goals. The implementation of the plan commenced in 2016 and will terminate in 2022. The overriding objectives of the plan was to accelerate the impartation of technical vocational skills to Nigerians, aggressively address service challenges, tackle infrastructural deficits, expand revenue generation and a gamut of other strictures hamstringing the actualisation of the Fund’s mandate.”
