From Christiana Gokyo, Jos
It has been observed that, unemployment in Nigeria today is at over 33 percent as over 23 million Nigerians that desirous to work cannot find Jobs, mostly because of the absence of requisite skills.
This is because poverty is equally on the rise with some estimates placing the number of Nigerians that are living in poverty to be over 90 million.
The Director General of Industrial Training Fund,Sir Joseph N. Ari made the observation at a Media briefing on the ITF strategic Policy Direction 2022-2025 in Jos today.
He added in the face of this our population has continued to soar with the World Bank estimating that Nigeria might hit 216 million by the end of this year.
He said,this will equally worrisome in the spectre of the out of school children, which according to the United Nations Children Fund(UNICEF) is projected to be over 18.5 million.
According to him, although government at all levels have implemented measures to tackle these challenges,it has become increasingly obvious that efforts have to be redouble by all and sundry for us to effectively rid the country of these challenges.
The director general further explained that,it is base on the above and in line with their mandate of developing a vast pool of skilled manpower sufficient to meet the needs of the public and private sector of the national economy coupled with resolutions at recently concluded ITF National Skills Summit held in Abuja.
Mr. Ari noted that,this was found imperative to review and refocus on their strategies to address the above challenges and to meet the skills requirement of the nation in line with global best practices.
On their strategies, he said, they have considered the need to scale up their challenges by leveraging on their three Es (Experience, Expertise and Expansive network) deployment of technology for wider coverage and more flexible service delivery.
Mr. Ari explained further that,the new policy framework which has as it theme,’Re-Engineering skills for Sustainable Development has external and internal components.’
He disclosed further that,the internal components of the plan,which entail value reorientation, Industrial development, commercialization of ITF facilities, alternative funding window, deployment and promotion among others.
