NBTE Advocates Conversion of ITF to National Skills Fund
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The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) says replacing the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) with the National Skills Fund (NSF) will better serve the purpose of financing skills development in the country.
According to NBTE, the idea aims at refocusing ITF towards skills development through the provision of required funds to not only aid skills training, but also support the training of National Skills Qualification (NSQ) verifiers and assessors.
Addressing a news conference in Kaduna on Monday, Executive Secretary of NBTE, Professor Idris Bugaje, said the proposal was part of the resolutions from the recently concluded 7th Industry Stakeholders’ Consultation on Skills Development.
Prof Bugaje said stakeholders recommended that ITF be transformed into NSF to finance and support skills development to avoid over-taxation of industries, but with the proviso that the proposed NSF should not be a trainer or certificate awarding body.
The NBTE boss, who dropped hints on the stakeholders’ proposal for an executive bill on the NSQ framework being sent to the National Assembly for consideration and passage, said; “If established, NSF will also support the development of national occupational standards and other relevant skill councils.”
Bugaje said the resolutions became imperative given the challenges facing the country’s vocational training sector, adding that some of these identifiable challenges include the weak linkages between industry and training institutions; loose coordination of the skills eco-system; and low awareness of NSQ.
Furthermore, he said; “There is also the problem of non-inclusion of NSQ in the national scheme of service, non-legislation of the framework, engagement of non-certified professionals by employers and lack of special funding scheme for skills development.
“Other problems include non-competitiveness of Nigerian artisans, lack of skilled and certified artisans for employment, non-availability of national skills policy and lack of labour market information.”
Similarly, the stakeholders recommended that all skills qualifications in the country, such as Trade Test certificate and City and Guild, among others, be collapsed into the NSQ, as approved by the Federal Executive Council, adding; “The meeting also recommended the listing of NSQ as a qualification in the national scheme of service to improve the recognition of skills qualifications, both nationally and internationally.”
Prof Bugaje said the stakeholders’ communique further canvassed thus; “We equally resolved that the National Council on Skills (NCS) should direct the development of national skills policy and generation of functional labour market information to determine the skills gap in the country.
“Part of our resolve was also that NCS should establish a functional structure for labour supply to Europe and the Middle East, India, Morocco and Bangladesh. Bangladesh, for example in 2019, exported 2.5 million skilled construction workers to Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world as a source of foreign exchange.”
While emphasising the need to have a national policy on the employment of certified artisans and professionals, the NBTE Executive Secretary lamented that paper qualifications were being given priority attention at the expense of skills in the country.
He also maintained that technical colleges at state levels should enjoy special intervention towards upgrading their facilities preparatory to rolling out NSQ training and meeting the critical skill sets that Nigeria needs for sustainable economic growth and development.
On inventive curricula for Polytechnics in the country, the NBTE chief said the mandate should focus on skills training, in collaboration with formal and informal industrial settings within their respective environment.
Going forward, Prof Bugaje said; “We have already informed the polytechnics that from 2023, there will be no accreditation of any technical programme unless they are running, at least, one skill programme in the school.”
