The Director-General, Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Mr Joseph Ari, said the Fund has trained 25 million Nigerians on various skills since its establishment 49 years ago.
Making this in Jos, Ari said the beneficiaries of the training were manning key sectors of the economy.
He said the key mandate of the ITF as enshrined in the Act that established it, was provision of skilled manpower sufficient to meet the needs of public and private sectors.
“Despite the enormity of the mandate, the ITF has discharged it with great successes by training over 25 million Nigerians in various skills,” he said.
He said since the inception of the management of the fund, its commitment to equipping Nigerians with technical skills for employability and entrepreneurship had never wavered.
He said their emphasis on skills acquisition had been premised on the fund’s firm belief that it remained the most sustainable solution to increasing poverty and unemployment and the catalyst to growth and development.
Last year, he said, in spite of challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the fund implemented the following skills intervention programmes: the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP) Special Skills Development Programme (SSDP) and Federal Government Skills Empowerment Programme (FEGOSEP).
Others are: Info-Tech Skills Empowerment Programme (ISEP) and Agri-Preneurship Training Programme (ATP) in addition to programmes which had trained thousands of Nigerians that were empowered with start-up packs for them to set up their own businesses.
According to Ari, the ITF upgraded facilities at its Industrial Skills Training Centres (ISTCs) and the Model Skills Training Centre (MSTC) Abuja, leading to the equipping of thousands of Nigerians with technical skills for employability and entrepreneurship.
He also said one outcome of the upgrade was production of the first indigenous Android GSM Smartphone with 100 per cent locally sourced materials by the ITF Model Skills Training Centre (MSTC) Abuja.
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