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Sir Joseph Ari, DG, ITF
By Raymond Gukas, Jos
The collaborations and partnerships between the Industrial Training Fund, (ITF), and other national and international relevant bodies have yielded positive attitude towards training and acquisition of skills among apprentice across the country.
Revealing this was the Director General of the ITF, Joseph Ntung Ari shortly after receiving an award of excellence from the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ), Plateau State.
He noted that with the sharp rise in Nigeria’s population, there was every need that the youths are equiped with various training skills in order to cater for the needs of the country; instead of allowing the youths to rely on foriegn risky employments.
According to him, these coĺlaborations has led to the “establishment of the Model Skills Training Centre, Abuja, Acquisition of Mobile training vans, and the conduct of Skills Gap Survey with UNIDO” among others.
The director general who was also excited about these coĺlaborations also stated that “these are a good example of Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP)” which is the focus of the present administration.
He however, regretted that “in our dear country, rather than collaboration and cooperation, turf protection and the tendency to indulge in the blame game have firmly taken hold in most institutions that have bearing on the capacity building of Nigerians.
“I say this taking into cognizance of recent declarations by persons that ordinarily should be familiar with the respective mandates of individual organisations involved in the manpower development in Nigeria but chose conveniently to display appalling ignorance.
“For purposes of clarification, it needs to be stressed that the Industrial Training Fund is specifically mandated to promote, encourage and provide skilled manpower to meet the needs of both private and public sectors of the economy”, he stressed.
The D. G. further stressed that with the institutionalization of the National Apprenticeship Training System (NATS), the ITF will enhance the capacity of artisans, craftsmen and technicians for employability and provide Nigerians with the relevant skills and competencies that will grow the economy.
