By our correspondent, Lafia
The Executive Director, Wing Commander Abdullahi Ibrahim Vocational and Skills Acquisition Institute, Lafia, Dr Daniel Asele, said the institute has so far trained and graduated about 400 youths in various skills sets since its establishment.
Asele stated this in an interview with newsmen in Lafia on Tuesday.
According to Asele, the youths who where trained between 2022 till date are already impacting positively to the development of the state via the trainings they received at the institute.
“These youths are already making waves in the society by way of contributing to the growth of the Nasarawa state economy, putting into practice what they learnt from the institute,” he said.
He explained that the institute has more about 40 different contemporary, marketable and relevant skills areas of training hence the capacity to enroll, train and graduate as much as 400 youths between 2022 till date.
“We have graduated two sets of trainees since the commencement of the institute on August 1, 2022 and the kind skills we trained them on are skills that are relevant, needed in the 21st century and most importantly will bring food to their tables and make them self reliant.
“I want to tell you that there is no local government area you will go to across the state that you will not see a business centre or outfit that is owned by a beneficiary of this institute,” he said.
Asele credited the feat of the institute to the overwhelming support of the Nasarawa state Governor, Engr. Abdullahi Sule whom he said deliberately established the institute due to his foresight on the importance of skills in modern times.
“Skills is just like the currency of the 21st century and the governor is aware of that he is also a technical man, a skills man and he has been giving us the needed support for us to achieve the set goals for the institute.
“In fact he recently gave out N200,000 each to 40 best trainees in the previous training programmes to serve as starter packs by buying some basic equipments in the areas they learnt their skills,” he said.
He said the institute is taking further steps to improve it’s capacity to equip trainees with necessary by collaborating or in the process of collaborating with other relevant agencies such as the Naional Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Industrial Training Fund (ITF) among others.
“We are living in a world of collaboration today. We cannot claim to know it all. That is why collaboration is pivotal to out success and growth and as you can see, this institute is already a centre for skills excellence in Nigeria,” he added.
Asele who revealed that the institute has 8 departments with about 40 skills areas of training listed the departments to include: electrical/electronic department, mechanical engineering department, construction department, Information and Communication Technology department.
He listed others to include culinary department, textile and fashion craft department, cosmetology department and general studies department.
“Some of the skills areas include domestic wiring and installation, refrigeration and air conditioning, welding and fabrication, Iron bending, concreting, tiling, carpentry, programming and web design, computer networking.
“We also have confectionaries, baking and pastries, local and continental cuisine, leather works, tailoring and fashion design, knitting, beauty care, soap making, barbing, hairdressing, entrepreneurship development among others,” he said.
He then described the reception of youths towards the activities of the institute as impressive and due to high interest, the institute currently runs there shots of training daily.
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