Francis Sardauna in Katsina
In a bid to stem unemployment and breed a new generation of entrepreneurs, the National Industrial Training Fund (ITF) said it has empowered 150,000 youths with employment and entrepreneurship skills since its inception.
The beneficiaries were trained on different trade areas that included plumbing and pipefitting, tailoring, tiling and photography through the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP) of the Fund.
Speaking during the graduation ceremony of the youths trained by the Fund in Katsina recently, the ITF Director General, Mr. Joseph Ari, said skills acquisition remains a veritable tool for alleviating poverty and unemployment in the country.
He said: “It is an incontrovertible fact that the any society that neglect the development of its human is bound to retrogressive in terms of growth development.”
The ITF director general, however, said the alarming rate of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria was worrisome despite existing vacancies in several sectors of the nation’s economy. According to him, survey conducted by ITF and other organisations revealed that many youths are still roaming the streets without any form of gainful employment giving rise to crimes facing the country.
Governor Aminu Masari, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Employment Promotion and Vocational Training, Hussaini Adamu, said his administration had accorded premium to youth empowerment, hence the empowerment of 12,747 youths across the state within four years.
He explained that additional 16,000 youths including women were also sponsored by the government to complete their programmes at the State Youth Craft Village.
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