The Industrial Training Fund -ITF, has announced a three-year strategic policy direction to enable the organization to achieve its mandate of fully tackling the numerous socio-economic problems bedeviling the nation.
The Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Sir Joseph Ari who announced the policy document on Monday at a media briefing in Jos stressed that skills were the currency of the 21st century as he notified the teeming youths in the country of the need to have relevant skills and create wealth because everyone had to be involved in the government’s efforts to effectively rid the country of the challenges of unemployment.
Sir Ari pointed out that the new strategy which has the theme: Re-Engineering Skills for Sustainable Development would scale up activities to address the soaring unemployment using the three Es of experience, expertise, expansive network, and other strategies from 2022 – 2025 hence the briefing is intended to fully acquaint the media of the plans so they can be effectively communicated to Nigerians what the Fund intends to do going forward.
In his words, “Unemployment in Nigeria today is at more than 33% as over 23 million Nigerians that are desirous to work cannot find jobs, mostly because of the absence of requisite skills.”
“Poverty is equally on the rise with some estimates placing the number of Nigerians that are living in poverty to be more than 90 million. In the face of all these, our population has continued to rise with the World Bank estimating that Nigeria would probably hit 216 million by the end of this year. Equally worrisome is the specter of the Out of School Children, which according to the United Nations Children Fund -UNICEF, is projected to be more than 18.5 million.”
