By BIMBO OYESOLA and ADEWALE SANYAOLU The Industrial Training Fund (ITF), established by Decree 47 of 1971, as amended in the 2011 ITF Act, was set up to provide, promote and encourage the acquisition of skills in commerce and industry with a view to churning out generations of skilled manpower sufficient to meet the nation’s needs. But with expatriates all over the country now, has the organisation been living up to expectation? Its Director General, Prof. Longmas Sambo Wapmuk, says yes, but quickly adds that the influx of expatriates is not unconnected with the inability of the nations’ higher institutions to produce quality graduates. He laments that finance has been the main clog in the wheel of progress of the organisation. According to him, out of the 867,000 companies that are to remit 1 per cent of their annual staff salaries to the agency, only about 20,000 do so, leaving 847,000 companies out of its reach.This, he blames for ITF funding woes. In this interview with Daily Sun, Wapmuk sheds light on the way forward. Excerpts. National development The ITF is a very important national institution, charged with a lot of responsibilities and to be specific, it is set up to provide, promote and encourage the acquisition of skills in commerce and industry with a view to regenerating a pool of skilled manpower sufficient to meet the needs of the Nigerian economy. It has a very important role of training and developing high level skilled manpower for the economy. It is also expected to empower the youth with skills to enable them get employed set up their own businesses. That is basically the responsibility of Industrial Training Fund. Likewise ITF is charged with the responsibilty of managing the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES). This scheme was set up three years after the establishment of ITF and it remains to provide internship opportunity for students studying technical courses in the universities, polytechnics or colleges of education. For the university, they are expected to spend six months out of their training periods on attachment to organisations, while for the polytechnic or colleges of education, the period is four months during the period of their trainings. It is intended to bridge the gap between theories and practice and also to get the students prepared for the world of work at the time they are graduating.
Expatriates influx The problem now is that Nigeria has trained a lot of people both at the university level as well as polytechnic and technical institutions. But these trainees are not properly trained because of certain inadequacies in our educational system. You found out that a lot of our education institutions have obsolete equipment where they exist at all. As a result of that most of the students trained find it difficult to fit in properly to the work environment. So the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) have complained about the inadequacies in skills of graduates coming out of our institutions and hence has to train them for a period of one or two years before they are competent to perform optimally in their organisations. As a result of this poor quality products from these institutions, the foreign companies are constrained to go out and employ people from outside the country to work in Nigeria whereas we have so many Nigerians that are unemployed. I feel the way out is that most of our institutions should be adequately equipped with the necessary materials to a level that Nigeria will be able to provide the industries with the required skilled manpower.
Achievement I was appointed on August 2006. This means that I’m slightly above seven years in the organization.
For example, when I came on board , many companies at the time, particularly the foreign companies, were not interested in training at the Industrial Training Fund, thinking that our staff were not very competent. We addressed this problem by training many of our people overseas. And today, in Lagos, you find out that we have so many training programmes being given to us to implement by the major companies. A proof of the rise in training consciousness, on account of ITF intervention, is the increasing request for reimbursement by employers of labour registered and the remittance of training contributions to the fund. Reimbursement of training contributions is done on condition that ITF guidelines on training are met. Therefore, the more the employers request for and get reimbursed indicates that training consciousness has really increased and is daily increasing in the economy.
I believe the organization has achieved its aim. The ITF was little known before I took over as chief executive.We have problem of poor funding. The budget of the organization was around N3.6 billion, which is far too small to achieve all what we want to achieve. Also, the staffers are not happy, there is no motivation and the salary was poor. The relationship between ITF and organized body was not good. My management was also dissolved. These and many more are some of the challenges. Since I assumed office as the Chief Executive, we have scaled up the training of our staff, both locally and abroad, with the objective of enhancing their professional competence. We trained members of our staff internationally, particularly, in the area of technical vocational education. The objective here is for them to come back and impart knowledge to those who are here at home so that we would be able to build a core of highly trained technical manpower. At the home level, we have organised short courses for our staff.
Consequently the ITF has created a crop of well-trained development officers, some of whom are certified and recognized internationally in their areas of specialization. For instance, we’re very good in the areas of occupational safety, health and environment. Also, we are involved in productivity and efficiency improvement training.
Poor funding Yes, we found out that over the years, the money available for training has been very low and we thought that there was the need to improve the level of funding. When I came, I started by soliciting for money from government. I drew up a plan and followed it up by going to the supervising ministry, the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and many other places and found out that I could not generate any revenue from my efforts.
So I decided to look inwards to see areas of generating revenue if we are to function properly as provided for in the law setting us up. I found out that in the so many countries I visited, they have similar laws but there is no reimbursement clause because they use all the money to train. But in our own case, we reimburse 60 per cent to the industry and 40 per cent is left for us to pay our salaries and to do the training.
On assumption of office as the Director General, I found out that there was a law establishing a Fund and in this law, there was provision for collection of some money to sustain the activities of ITF. When I came in, the level of fund generation was very low as I said earlier. Apart from the fact that the budget of the ITF was around N3.6 billion, the law stipulates that ITF should collect 1 per cent of firms and government agencies’ annual staff salary.
You know, ITF is sustained by contributions from the organized private sector. But, you see, when they contribute this money, ITF does not keep all the money. We require them to train their own staff; so part of this training is done by them. When they train, in accordance with our new law, we refund 50 per cent of what we collected from them; so, we do not keep all the money. What is left is not enough to fund us, and to equip our centres. That is why, of recent, you see that we have been making a lot of efforts to collect revenue.
Flouting ITF Laws Several agencies across all tiers of government as well as about 847,000 private sector operators, registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), have been identified as defaulters in the ITF law, thus putting us under severe funding constraints.
There are about 867,000 companies registered with the CAC as companies operating in the country, but only 20,000 companies are captured by the agency, meaning that as much as 847,000 companies are not captured; putting all of them on the list of probable defaulters of the ITF law. The ITF law mandates every employer, including government at all levels and their agencies, having 25 or more employees in their establishment, in respect of each calendar year and or the prescribed date, to contribute to the Fund one per cent of the amount of his annual pay roll.But ironically, we have discovered that, even agencies of government who are supposed to be partners of ITF, which is itself a federal government agency, are not obeying the directive.The law stipulates that any contribution not paid within the time prescribed in the Act attracts a sum equal to five per cent of the amount unpaid to be added for each month or part of a month after the date on which payment should have been made. The only thing we can do for a recalcitrant employer is to take such to court. But it’s not the best way. So we have in the law now that anybody who wants to benefit from FG contract or business should show evidence of payment of ITF training contributions. As such, some organisations that were not paying before have started paying because they want to do business with the FG. We are also collaborating with some other government agencies like the Customs for those companies who have to clear their goods at the ports. We believe that with times people will obey the law.
NISDP The National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP) is ongoing. It is a youth programme to be implemented in all states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with 23 states and the FCT nearly completed, with 13 more states to be followed.The programme was designed to fasttrack the achievement of the national industrial revolution plan of the Federal Government’s transformation agenda in line with Vision 20:2020.The thrust of the programme was meant to shore up the skill shortages by building capacity of the youth so that they could be employed by others or be self-employed.As a goal to turn Nigeria’s qualitative human and physical resources advantage to productive advantage, the initiative was geared towards developing skilled entrepreneurial workforce for small and medium enterprises in areas where the nation has comparative advantage, reduce youth restiveness, provide skills to support industrial revolution as well as poverty reduction.Currently, a total of 10,000 youths from nine states, which include Abia, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, among others, were selected to undergo vocational skills training and entrepreneurship programme for three months during the first phase of the programme.In the second phase of the programme, 14 states would benefit, which include Sokoto, Kaduna, Katsina, Adamawa, Gombe, Enugu, Kogi, Niger, Borno, Ondo, Ogun, among others. We have identified three trade areas in which the 14,000 youths would be trained, which include welding and fabrication, plumbing and autotronics.The prospect of the programme is an opportunity for members of the organized private sector, who complain of lack of skilled hands, to draw from the pool of skilled technical middle level manpower which will help to mop up unemployment.It is expected that majority of the graduates of the programme will start up their own businesses while some will be employed in various sectors of the economy; thus readily becoming potential members of various business organizations.
To this end, the Bank of Industry (BoI) would help to provide the NISDP graduates access to start up loan facilities while Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) would provide them with entrepreneurship development and training skills.
As a follow-up, a data bank would be generated for the NISDP graduates, which would guide prospective employers and clients in making informed decisions about utilization of their services.
Compliance Yes, we have started collecting the money but the money we have collected so far is not much. This is because we are just implementing the legislation and there are so many things in the amended Act. If you look at section six of that law. The level of compliance is not high, but it has improved. For instance, the number of companies have improved from 5,000 to 20, 000. Our revenue has increased to about N18 billion now. Mind you, about 800,000 companies are registered with CAC. So, you can imagine 20,000 companies out of about 867,000 companies. If we can get hold of atleast 300,000 companies, it will solve most of our problems. We still have a long way to go, though, but I know we will get there.
Training centres The ITF training centre, particularly our model skill training centre has become a ‘Mecca’ for Technical Vocational Education. We have centres in Lagos, Jos, Kano; we have a modern one in Abuja. We have been able to complete the one in Lokoja. When people come around, we start to showcase our centre which we built with technical support from the Institute of Technical Education Services of Singapore. The ITF also is always at the cutting edge of technical vocational skills training in Nigeria. In addition to bringing people to training, the ITF takes training to the people, particularly, in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria by deploying a number of mobile training workshops decked with the state-of-the-art modern equipment tools and facilities in 11 trade areas.
So when we have these mobile workshops, we would be able to take training to the doorsteps of our people. All these attest to our technology-driven processes, functions and programmes in the ITF. And definitely, with all these efforts of offering direct intervention in industrial and commercial skills training and development with these competent staff, we believe that we will be doing a good service to our country.
We also proposed something to government, which we presented to stakeholders, known as NISDP which is an aspect of the national industrial development plan for the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment.
This plan envisages that we will have industrial skills training centers in the 36 states of the federation and Abuja. And in each of these centres, we have provision for training people in 24 trade areas. We have also made provision in this plan for Centers for Advance Skills Training for Employment (CASTE) and these are bigger centers that have provision for about 45 trade areas and these will be located in the six geo-political zones of the country.
The skill centers are very costly to establish because some equipment can cost up to N15million. We have estimated that the Industrial Skills Centres in the 36 states and Abuja will have provision for 24 trades and will cost about N3.5 billion, while the bigger ones, the advance skills centres in the six geo-political zones, will cost about N5.5 billion. So, if you cost it, you will realize it’s a lot of money. But we have envisaged that with our amended Act, we will be able to generate the required money over time to help us establish the centres.
SIWES We have been organizing SIWES for students and there is hardly any technical person in Nigeria that has gone through tertiary education that does not know about the ITF. We have been able to pay some of our SIWES students. We have paid about 430,000 participants between 2007 and now. However, the issue of paying student by the government will stop next year. We want to focus on the training. In fact, we have recommended that government should de-emphasize the payment of money and focus on the training.
Transformation Agenda The ITF is one of the major parastatals of the Federal Government. It is one of the organizations being used by the Federal Government to achieve the transformation agenda of this administration. If you look at the ITF and the Act establishing it, you realize it has the responsibility to provide, promote, and encourage the acquisition of skills in commerce and industry with a view to generating the manpower sufficient to meet the needs of the Nigerian economy. And you are aware that, over time, the ITF has been performing this function. Human capital development is a sine qua non of the economy of any country. Without identifying and developing technical manpower, most of the industries and organizations will not be able to function. And that is where the ITF comes in; we are charged with the mandate of developing and training and providing technical manpower. And you can see that most of our activities are geared towards this noble objective. So, you cannot say the ITF has lost its relevance – no! In fact, the ITF has rather become even more relevant in the light of the Federal Government’s aspiration to meet up with the leading economies of the world.
How feasible with poor funding? Very feasible. Very soon. ITF by law is expected to collect 1 per cent of training funds from every employer of labour in the country, any company employing five persons and above. If we calculate 1 per cent throughout the country, theoretically, it is a very huge amount of money, if we look at all employers of labour in the country. It should be in the region of about N200 million per annum. But what happens is that the ITF gives 50 per cent of whatever we collect back to the employers if they trained in accordance to our stipulation. So by implications, if these funds are collected, it means about N100million would be available to ITF every year. Each of these centres is expected to cost about N4billion. The money we are generating is also expected to be invested which would bring some returns. So within five years, we will be able to go a long way in financing the centre. The only problem we have now is how to improve on our revenue generation capacity. If we do that, perhaps from next year, if we can generate more billions after some time, we will discover that each state would have been able to have its own skill centre. This to us at ITF is just the beginning so that there would be proper institutions for training. For us at the Industrial Training Fund, we want to focus on the graduates of secondary schools. Nigeria is churning out so many secondary school graduates, and only about 20 per cent of them make it to the university. Majority are roaming the streets, they are not ready to go back and farm. So if we provide this category of people with the required skills, then they would have something to do and those who may eventual get to the university, with the skill earlier acquired, may turn out to be inventors, researchers, some may set up their private businesses, employ people, while some may even get employed. Some of them may even get opportunity to go outside the country to work and eventually would be sending money back home. In all Nigeria will benefits. This is our focus. We would leave the other arms of education, while we concentrate on those levels that are not being catered for, so that they do not become nuisance or Boko Haramists in the system.
Future plan The ITF has fared better, we are definitely not doing enough. We are not doing enough in the sense that if the institution does not have the facility, it becomes difficult for us to operate. At the meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Industry, I mentioned that we need facility. Besides, the organisation did not have the necessary fund to get those required facility. Though there are plans on the ground to refurbish but the raw cash to back up the plans is not there and that is why of recent we have started agitating for the change of the law to enable us to generate more funding.
Even though the law has been amended, and our contributors have been expanded, even then, not much fund is being contributed as many of those companies are still reluctant. So right now, what we have is pittance, which is not enough for all our programmes. As a result of that we decided to embark on another programme, which is the National Industrial Trade Promotion Programme in the states, using facility of other organisations, including ours, because ours is inadequate.
So we go out to get some facilities and use master trainers within the companies to help us train these youths on those speacialised technical trade areas. That is what the ITF has been doing. Towards the last quarter of last year, we trained one thousand youths each in nine states and the Federal Capital Territory. This year, we are training one thousand each in fourteen states. So by the end of this year, we would have trained one thousand youths in each of the states all over the federation and the capital territory. We have intention to continue building on that legacy next year. Some of these trainees will get job, some of them will be able to establish on their own, some of them may go back to further their education to get more training on the skills they have acquired. Our intention is to have a skill centre in each state of the federation. Alone, we believe that if we have a skill centre in each state, we will be in a position to run 25 programmes in each of the centres. Then we will be admitting 25 people per course, which then means that each centre would be able to admit 625 people to read different courses and that multiply by 37 centres would be a very big number. And that number would have been a big relief on the unemployment in the country. We are also planning that apart from the 37 centres, we could also have three sectors – specific centres for the oil and gas, construction and the hospitality industries. Furthermore, our plan is also to have a bigger trade centres in each geo-political zones. Every zone equally will run about five trade programmes and then we will admit 25 per programme, multiply by 45 and by the six zones. In these centres we will run advance skill training for employment. There, we will be able to train some of the graduates of the lower level, the ones established in the states. Besides we also intend to run short programmes for the university students who are doing technical studies so that they would come here to have practical experience in the courses they’ve been taking in their studies through the theory. We believe that with that programme, many of our graduates would be more productive and highly marketable.
0 comments:
Post a Comment