ITF INTEGRATES MANAGERIAL TRAINING FOR OPTIMAL RESULTS

In an attempt to reposition Nigeria to enable the country meet global standards, the current Industrial Training Fund (ITF) management has integrated managerial and technical training with a view to remaining responsive to the training needs of its clients.

In the past 38 years, ITF has trained over 10 million Nigerians whose contributions to various sectors of the nation's economy are inestimable. Despite the negative impact of the global economic meltdown that is bedeviling every country today, the Industrial Training Fund has succeeded in implementing 493 scheduled and unscheduled training programmes that attracted not less than 11,431 participants drawn from 1,836 organizations across the six geo-political zones of the country this year alone.

This was revealed by the Director-General of the Fund, Professor Longmas Sambo Wapmuk who gave statistics which revealed the achievements and challenges that the organisation has been facing since it was established.

On the very popular Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), he explained that the Fund has continued to sustain the programme despite shortcomings in administering the Scheme, most of which are not unconnected with inadequate funding from the Federal Government.

According to the DG, current statistics show that the Fund is being owed quite a large sum since 2005.

In spite of this problem however, he said in 2008, over two hundred thousand students participated in the Scheme. “This year, over one hundred and sixty thousand students from different tertiary institutions are in various companies putting into practice what they have learnt in school.”

He also disclosed that recent efforts aimed at repositioning the Fund includes massive retraining of staff through staff welfare and internal capacity building, improved vocational training and modern skills acquisition techniques. This, as well as the proposed establishment of 15 additional Skills Training Centres across the nation, will go a long way towards helping the nation actualize vision 20-2020.

Wapmuk explained further that, “the programmes are part of the Fund's 10-year blueprint aimed at ensuring the ITF does not only remain vibrant and competitive, but also strategically positioned to contribute its own quota towards nation building bearing in mind its critical role in complimenting the Federal Government's seven point agenda.