…Graduates Of the Skill-Up Programme To Earn International Certification
The Industrial Training Fund has taken skills development in a different direction by abolishing the practice of handing out starter packs to graduates of its skills training programmes and rather exposing them to certification by both local and international awarding bodies to certify them as fit for both the local and international markets.
The Director-General of ITF, Dr Afiz Oluwatoyin Ogun, made this known in Abuja while briefing newsmen after the Fund completed its latest round of assessments of privately owned training centres collaborating with it for the delivery of the SUPA programme across Nigeria.
As ITF commences the SUPA Phase II deployment and training process, it is seeking to increase the number of privately owned training centres from 880 to 1500.
This is to enable it to achieve the target of graduating 100,000 artisans in this phase.
The Director General noted that this figure of 100,000 artisans will be drawn from the 29,000 that graduated from the SUPA Foundation programme (Phase I) last year and from the pool of over 700,000 registered artisans on its SUPA platform.
As this population is scattered across every local government area in Nigeria, he said it is necessary to have at least two training centres per local government to guarantee ease of access for artisans.
The training centre accreditation process is a comprehensive process that involves the examination of the corporate structure of training centres, evaluation of their physical infrastructure and setup, appraisal of their training equipment and assessment of the competence/qualifications of their instructors. Each training centre is required to first register on the SUPA platform of the ITF.
Upon completion of this accreditation process, the ITF Boss said the Fund will publish the list of successful training centres based on their categorisations in categories “A”, “B” and “C”.
Thereafter, he said the Fund will begin the process of notifying artisans of their deployment to the various accredited training centres based on proximity to their disclosed residential address.
That exercise, he added, will commence and end before April 30, 2025.
The DG further disclosed that the fund is going to make significant investments in improving the capacities of accredited training centres to meet the target of SUPA, which is international certification.
According to him, over 3000 instructors from the 880 accredited training centres have undergone train-the-trainer courses.
The Fund, he noted, is developing a holistic system for equipment support for training centres and also seeking ways to ease access to finance.
To achieve the goal of turning out two million trained artisans annually, Ogun said the fund will need to collaborate with 10,000 privately owned and well-established training centres.
This, he added, is a critical component of the skill ecosystem which the fund is seeking to build in Nigeria to aid easy cultivation of manpower to meet industrial needs and provide continuous development/lifelong skills for graduates to match them with available opportunities in the industrial sector.
He restated that the SUPA Phase II training entails training of artisans in soft skills of project management, professional ethics & patriotism and industrial health & safety.
For project management, he explained that ITF is collaborating with the Chartered Institute of Project Management of Nigeria (CIPMN) to deliver a bespoke certification for artisans in a special category.
Both the examination and certification process of artisans in this phase will be handled by CIPMN. SUPA Phase II is to take 8 weeks, and successful artisans will automatically graduate to the final phase of SUPA, which is Phase III.
This phase, he added, will cover the actual technical training, which is based on 30 per cent theory and 70 per cent practical, as well as training in entrepreneurship.
Ogun noted that though SUPA was given to ITF as a mandate to address rampant quackery, unemployment and youth restiveness, the programme completely aligns with ITF’s core mandate and also addresses a long-standing challenge of providing contributing employers to the Fund with skilled manpower to keep their businesses going.
He thanked the President for his deep foresight on this critical issue besetting the economy, the Minister of Industry for his leadership, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance for his solid support for the programme, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and the Nigerian Employees Consultative Association, and other relevant public and private organisations that have reckoned with the SUPA programme.
He assured that in a short while, Nigerians will begin to feel the impact of all the good work being done behind the scenes by ITF in the form of better-skilled workmen in relevant trade areas.
ITF Abolishes Starter-Packs For Graduates Of Artisan Programmes is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
Source: The Whistler
