Business
High Unemployment: ITF Fingers Poor Policies On Technical Skills

The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) says poor perception and absence of clear policies on technical skills acquisition are responsible for the high rate of unemployment in the country.
ITF Director-General, Sir Joseph Ari, who made this known in Abuja, yesterday, at its first National Skills Summit in Nigeria, expressed worry over the challenges facing the organisation.
The skills summit was organised by ITF to provide a forum for a broad spectrum of stakeholders to collectively deliberate on ways and solutions to tackle unemployment and skills acquisition problems in Nigeria.
“Till date, many Nigerians still believe that hands-on skills are a preserve of the poor and disadvantaged in the society as they are viewed as dirty, dreaded and dangerous.
“This perception and other challenges have led to skills shortages in trades and vocational areas that Nigerians should be well equipped to perform,’’ he said.
Ari also decried lack of synergy and co-operation between agencies with mandate for skills development for job creation leading to desperate efforts that were yielding little results.
According to him, he formed his views 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).
Ari said that the survey showed that in spite of rising unemployment, vacancies still existed in several sectors of the economy that were still reliant on foreign labour to be filled.
According to him, “if more than 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.