The Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Sir Joseph Ari, said the Fund will soon unveil a plan that is intended to effectively reposition and refocus the organization to actualize its mandate and positively impact all segments of its stakeholder and the national economy.
The plan, which is tagged: “ITF Reviewed Vision: Strategies for Mandate Actualization”, the director general said, has a number of quick wins, medium and long term goals and would terminate in 2022, with the aim of equipping Nigerians with diverse skills for employability and entrepreneurship.
Speaking during a meeting with Area Managers and Training Managers of the Fund’s Area Offices and Centres at the ITFs Center for Excellence, Bukuru, Jos, Sir Ari said as part of the plan that the ITF would develop the capacity of 17,000 Nigerian farmers, noting that areas like fish farming, poultry production, crop production and agricultural mechanization amongst others would especially be prioritized.
He disclosed that the Fund would use its existing Industrial Skills Training Centres in Kano, Bukuru, the Centre for Excellence and the undeveloped lands owned by the Fund in Enugu, Orile-Owu, Katsina, Kaduna, Bauchi, Port Harcourt and Ofada, Lagos state, to establish demonstration farms that would be used to train Nigerian farmers.
The ITF DG noted that the emphasis on agriculture by the plan was premised on conviction that requisite capacity of Nigerian farmers must be developed if the nation would achieve food security and conserve a huge foreign reserve currently expended on the importation of food items.
The DG explained that the meeting was convened to apprise Area Managers and Training Managers of the new vision and direction of, ITF, and charged them to ensure its actualization in their respective Area Offices and Centers.
He stressed that the actualization of the nation’s economic diversification agenda and other focus areas of the Federal Government including provision of skills, revival of agriculture and entrepreneurial development rested on the ability of the Fund to effectively achieve its mandate, warning that non-challant attitude to work by all functionaries of the Fund would not be tolerated.
