
Director-General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Sir Joseph Ari.
The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) is said to have concluded arrangements to commence direct admission of students into the Fund’s Model Skills Training Centre (MSTC) from 2020.
Mr Joseph Ari, Director-General, ITF, told journalists during an interactive session on Friday in Jos, News Agency of Nigeria reports.
According to him, the management of JAMB were fascinated by the depth and content of the curriculum and machinery at the MSTC in Abuja.
The centre has been established to help in promoting technical and vocational education in Nigeria and bridging the skills gap in the country.
The director-general said the ultimate objective of the centre is to empower Nigerians to handle critical services that were hitherto the exclusive preserve of expatriates.
He said, like most developed countries, skills acquisition will help transform the economic landscape of the country.
He explained that the training at the MSTC is modular in nature and that after each module, students could work in any factory as they would have been efficiently trained to work in any factory setting.
According to Ari, graduates of the MSTC will be issued the National Innovative Diploma certificate and the National Vocational Certificate
He further said that the ITF would be hosting the 14th edition of the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) biennial conference in February.
He said that the SIWES is the brain child of the ITF, and it was initiated to provide students of engineering, technical and allied disciplines with practical experience of the real work situations they would likely encounter after graduation.
The director-general said that as part of efforts to improve the scheme, the ITF had stepped up engagements with the supervising agencies and other stakeholders to address some of the problems bedeviling the scheme during the conference.
He said that resolutions from the event would be implemented to resolve the numerous challenges that had been encountered in the administration of the programme.