Dr. Hafiz Ogun, the Director General/Chief Executive, Industrial Training Fund (ITF), has pledged to ensure that artisans trained by the Fund have international certification to work anywhere in the world.
Speaking yesterday (Tuesday, August 20) in Jos, the Plateau State capital, when the management team of Alberk QA Technic Istanbul on facility assessment of some ITF training centres for the Skill Up Artisans (SUPA) certification, visited him, Ogun disclosed that the Istanbul-based certification group was the second to visit the Fund to assess its facilities and recommend it for International Standard Organisation (ISO) certification.
According to the DG, every effort in this direction is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s promise to skill up Nigerian artisans with international certification.
“The President has asked me through the Ministry of Trade and Investment that after you are trained, you will be certified and will be given a bouquet to start up,” Ogun said.
“With us here is Alberk QA Technic, Istanbul, and we are expecting others to give our trainees international certification so that they will match their peers anywhere in the world.
“The President is working, and he meant exactly what he told Nigerians.
“In line with the above, 24,000 intending artisans have already been deployed across the states of the federation,” he said.
Alberk QA Technic Global Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Latif Yilmaz, said in his remarks that Nigeria was blessed with abundant natural resources.
Yilmaz stated that Nigeria has petroleum, gas, all types of agricultural resources , and indeed everything, but they notice a challenge with human resources as they cannot efficiently utilise the resources.
“This is crucial because the future depends entirely on human capital. Without skilled people, nothing else holds value.
“Therefore, we aim to increase the capacity of individuals and develop their skills so that they can contribute to the development of industrial areas, social services, and agriculture.
“I believe this new programme will be a significant innovation for Nigeria. I hope it will be very successful in shaping Nigeria’s future, and we are very happy to be part of this SUPA programmme,” he added.
Alberk QA Technic Country Director, Mr Idu Ameh, said that their visit was the culmination of a skill-up artisan programme from training to certification.
Ameh said that the ITF mandate was to set training standards as well as evaluate and certify, but the infrastructure for that was not yet in place.
“We are here to help ITF prepare in line with ISO standard 17024, which is the general requirement for the certification of persons.
“What we are doing is going from one vocational centre to the other to assess them, prepare them, and make them examination centres.
“The standard makes room for a lot of criteria that need to be met, and part of the structural resources, records, and certification system is paramount.
“Without the system in place, artisans would not be certified. Whoever is certified needs to follow the ITF rules.
“We are going to help ITF prepare the requirements for certification in line with International Labour Organisation Standard classification of Occupations,” he said.
