Fred Ezeh, Abuja

The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) says it would, before year end, train about 13,000 persons, mainly youths, women and the physically-challenged, in various skills.

Director General and Chief Executive of ITF, Sir Joseph Ari, disclosed this at meeting with ITF officials, in Jos, Plateau State, at the weekend.

He considered 2018 as year of delivery for the Agency.

Ari also said the training, encompassing 11 vocational skills, would commence on various dates between July and August and terminate in November this year.

The Director-General stated that governments all over the world had turned to skills acquisition as the universal currency of the 21st century to arm their citizenry with skills for employment and growth.

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He listed the skills programmes billed for implementation to include the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), the Women Skills Empowerment Programme (WOSEP),  Skills Training and Empowerment Programme for the Physically Challenged (STEPC), Air Conditioning and Refrigeration and Designing and Garment Making

Ari also explained that within the same period, five other training programmes, including Post-Harvest Techniques and Product Development , Aqua-Culture/Fish Farming Manure Production , Crop Production/Greenhouse Technology and Poultry Farming aimed at equipping Nigerian farmers with requisite skills for improved farm yield, would be implemented using the Galilee International Management Institute (GIMI) model.

He further stated that the emphasis on skills for the agricultural sector was informed by the fact that it was the occupation of majority of Nigerians and a key component of the economic diversification agenda of the Federal Government.

Apart from NISDP that would be implemented in all the states of the Federation and the FCT, the Ari also explained that the other training programmes would only be implemented in some selected states.

He urged state governments and other stakeholders would sponsor additional trainees for the programmes, noting that such collaboration would be required to cover the monthly stipends for the trainees, provide start-up packs for such additional trainees and also offset any allowances for the master-craftsmen that would be retained as a result of the additional trainees.