By Harry Awurumibe, Head, ABUJA BUREAU
The Director-General/Chief Executive of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Sir. Joseph Ari today in Abuja called for inter-agencies synergy and collaborations to tackle the unemployment scourge in Nigeria.
He spoke at the 1st National Skills Summit held today (Thursday), March 12, 2020, at the Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Wuse Abuja.
“It is with great delight that I welcome you to the First National Skills Summit in Nigeria, which is organised by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) for us to collectively deliberate and chart pathways and solutions to tackling the unemployment problem facing our dear country.
The reasons for the Summit, which is the first to be organised in over 60 years as an independent Nation, are not far fetched.
“Across the nation today, no day passes without reports of kidnappings, armed robbery, mass killings and other heinous crimes. In the event of arrest, most of these perpetrators claim some form of tertiary education and blame unemployment for their dastardly acts”, Ari lamented.
The ITF boss said this is despite the fact that the Federal Government, especially under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has rolled out numerous policies and other initiatives directly targeted at tackling unemployment and its attendant fallouts.
He added “from what the Federal Government has done and is doing, it is obvious that the unemployment situation that has persisted is not as a result of the lack of will and commitment of the Federal Government to find lasting solutions to the problem”.
Director General ITF, Joseph Nri
“This brings us to the question; why has unemployment continued to defy all solutions that have been thrown at it? As the organisation responsible for the development of indigenous manpower for the public and private sectors of the economy, we are firmly placed to understand and appreciate what the challenges are.
Key amongst them is the absence of clear policies on technical skills acquisition as a vehicle for job creation and poverty reduction as well as the lack of synergy and co-operation between Agencies with mandate for skills development for job creation leading to disparate efforts that are yielding little results.
Another important obstacle is our perception of skills acquisition. Till date, many Nigerians still believe that hands-on skills are a preserve of the poor and the disadvantaged in our society as they are viewed as dirty, dreaded and dangerous. This perception has led to skills shortages in trades and vocational areas that Nigerians should be well equipped to perform.
My opinion finds support from a Skills Gap Survey in Six Priority Sectors of the Nigerian Economy that was conducted by ITF in liaison with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), which showed that despite rising unemployment, vacancies still existed in several sectors of the economy that are still reliant on foreign labour to be filled.
My understanding of this is that if over 20 million Nigerians are not employed and yet technicians are imported, the answer can only be that Nigerians have not fully embraced skills acquisition as a sustainable alternative to white collar jobs. This mindset and the perception that hands-on skills are for a certain group of Nigerians has to change.
Another factor could be the disconnect between the schools and the needs of the industries, leading to a situation where it is not uncommon to hear employers lament the unemployability of graduates of our tertiary institutions. This formed the subject of a presentation by the Human Capital Group at the Financial System Strategy (FSS) 2020 International Conference on the state of the Nigerian educational system.
According to the presentation, the “ emphasis in Nigerian institutions has been on verbal activity rather than skill acquisition and problem solving activities,” while also noting that “The educational system has not been tailored to meet developmental needs of the nation”.
