Zulum Links Insecurity to Lack of Technical, Vocational Skills

*Partners ITF to boost youth productivity

James Emejo

The Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, Tuesday attributed the current spate of insecurity across the country to lack of technical and vocational education for youths.

He said the mismatch between the educational system and the industries as well as the mismatch between graduates and the labour market – constituted two major problems affecting employability in the country.

Zulum, during a visit to the Model Training Center of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Abuja, said the lack of entrepreneurship development had given way to insecurity including kidnapping, banditry, insurgency, oil bunkering among others.

He argued that the root causes of insurgency were not limited to endemic poverty, illiteracy, social inequality, poor economic infrastructure and social infrastructure, drug abuse, environmental degradation, climate change but also traceable to the dearth of entrepreneurship in the country.

He said:”If we want to move forward we must address the issue of security.”

The governor said the purpose of his visit was to interface with the fund with a view to promoting technical and vocational education in Borno State, as well as the entire North eastern region.

After a tour of the model center, Zulum who was impressed by the state of art facilities on ground, said the state will partner with the ITF specifically in the areas of electrical installations, sub mechatronics and culinary services among others.

He said:”We have seen their level of participation. They have the state of the art facilities that Borno State government will partner with them.”

On the sustainability of the programme for the proposed beneficiaries, the governor said,”We are not here to see things for ourselves and go back, we are here to understand the entire system to see how we can ensure the establishment of veritable and sustainable technical and vocational technical education.

“That means we are looking into their curriculum and after observing the curriculum, we also observe their module and see how we can get a complete package.

“When we train the children, we shall provide them with some starter packs so that they shall be in their own.”

He noted that despite the rich potentials of ITF, the organisation had never been well exploited by Nigerians to bridge the current skills challenges.

Zulum said:”We have two major problems in Nigeria that affect employability. One is the mismatch between our educational system and the industries – a total mismatch and is a very serious problem.

Our universities and polytechnics are not linked to our industries and we shall never get it right.

“Our second problem is the mismatch between our graduates and the labour market. Most of our graduates are unemployable because you haven’t given priority to technical and vocational education.”

However, Director General/Chief Executive, ITF, Mr. Joseph Ari, expressed strong approval for the partnership between the state and ITF.

He said the collaboration will also address the issues of youth restiveness in the North east as well as provide means of memorable skills for youths to be self sufficient.

Represented by Director, Technical and Vocational Skills Training Department, ITF, Mrs. Lami Dakwak, the ITF DG said:”The modules they will go through here will give them jobs and they can be on their own and so this partnership will give opportunity for youths in the North east that have no opportunity to gain skills to be able to gain these skills. We welcome this partnership strongly.”