The Director General and the CEO of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Dr. (Mrs.) Juliet Chukkas-Onaeko has revealed that about 60% of unemployed Nigerians are youth. She made this disclosure at maiden graduation ceremony of the first batch of trainees of ITF Model Skills Training Center (MSTC), Abuja. She said the institute was established in 2009, by President Goodluck Jonathan to curtail the rising unemployment especially the youth and to stimulate inclusive economic growth by empowering the youth with technical vocational skills to be gainfully employed or become entrepreneurs. “It is worthy of note that 60% of the unemployed are the youth who constitute 32% of the population representing 60% of the workforce, most of which are graduates of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. This large group of the unemployed perhaps accounts for the rising socio-economic vices plaguing the nation such as kidnapping, high profile assassination, armed robberies, religious intolerance and terrorism”, she said.
She pointed out that ninety trainees were accepted at inception of the institute into 5 trade areas in August 2011, but only 30 of them from Electrical and Computer Networking and information Technology trade areas were graduating. The remaining 67 will graduate in future. She noted that fund was the major constraint in the running of the institute and urged government at all level, particularly the federal government to extend funds from either SURE-P, PENCOM or even the Sovereign Wealth Fund, so that the Center can help in providing the skills required in the national economy.
A graduating student of the institute, Itua Aigbublelu told our correspondent that his 2year stay in the institute was worth the while and enjoined the management of the center to extend the same privilege to other Nigerians.
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