Shettima urges united front to bridge Nigeria’s skills gap

Vice President Kashim Shettima on Thursday called for immediate and united action to close Nigeria’s widening skills gap, describing it as a national priority critical to economic transformation.

This is just as the Federal Government has hinted at a proposal for the review of existing skills training centres across several Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government to align their work and functions with national development goals.

“What binds us together supersedes whatever divides us. We have to make this country work. We need to fill in the skills gap,” Shettima said during the 6th meeting of the National Council on Skills at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He noted that the council’s mandate is to develop a strategic workforce capable of meeting Nigeria’s evolving economic demands.

Senior Special Assistant to the VP on Information and Strategy, Stanley Nkowcha, disclosed this in a statement titled ‘FG plans nationwide audit of skills centres to transform workforce.’

Shettima pointed out that the council has a mission to strategically position Nigeria’s workforce to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving economy.

“This council was established with a clear mandate to drive the strategic development of the skilled workforce that can contribute meaningfully to national growth and prosperity,” he added.

The Vice President described the session as an open forum where positions were aired and important decisions were taken, emphasising that stakeholder engagement, consensus-building, and decisive leadership are essential to fixing Nigeria’s skills and employment crisis.

A major highlight of the meeting was the proposal for a National Skills Infrastructure Audit to create a centralised database of all training facilities, verify their functionality, and identify gaps or overlaps in infrastructure.

“The government’s policy trajectory is to strengthen human capital development for national growth and industry through skills development. However, unless the skills infrastructure across MDAs is optimised, this vision will remain unattainable,” the council noted.

The audit will also involve physical verification of centres and a detailed cataloguing of operational training facilities, ensuring alignment with national occupational standards and labour market needs.

Earlier, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa, made a presentation on the National Artisan Skills Acquisition Programme, an initiative aimed at training 10,000 artisans annually in high-demand construction trades.

The programme is designed to formalise Nigeria’s informal artisan sector by providing certification and onboarding qualified artisans onto a Digital Artisan Marketplace.

“The overall goal of NASAP is to establish a reliable and competent artisan workforce to drive the Ministry’s housing and infrastructure agenda while empowering Nigeria’s youth with employable skills,” the Minister said.

He noted that NASAP seeks to tackle youth unemployment while simultaneously addressing the skilled labour shortage in the construction sector, just as he said it is projected to have a significant impact on both job creation and long-term infrastructure development.

Addressing State House Correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, revealed that “a committee has been set up to do a complete mapping of the skill centres across the country to see where these skill centres are and what we now need to do with them.”

He said the committee will present its report at the next meeting, billed for September 18.

“Our next meeting is scheduled for September 18 for the next council of skills meeting. But I’ll tell you, this is the first time we have a council that is bringing every disparate component of skill together in Nigeria, and in doing this, we will now begin to close the gap. The government will come up with a more aligned position on how we need to how we’re moving quickly to give skills to Nigerians,” Alausa said.

Source:- Punch