IT Fund: mission impossible?

 

Greatest Nigerian students! Great!! Good people great nation, a song we must sing even amidst the national blackout of the rebranded NEPA turns PHCN and the fear of stepping out for months on industrial training as an undergraduate, at least, I can be sure of one thing, no salary will be made available for that period.


This might have been what led to the recent outcry of Professor Longmas Sambo Wapmuk, the Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), at the 44th seminar series of the agency. The professor demanded for a sum of N7.5 billion to enable the institute settle the accumulated allowances of students, who passed through its Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) programme, this in my opinion is a poignant illustration of how far the nation has gone in undermining the very important role that the ITF was supposed to play in the country’s quest for technological breakthrough.

May I say at this point that our dream of becoming one of the 20 leading economies of the world in the next ten years cannot be realised, if extra attention is not paid to the acquisition of technical skills by young Nigerians. Meanwhile, young Nigerians can only get those skills, if agencies such as the ITF and many of our research institutes are properly funded and monitored to ensure that they carry out the mandate given to them.

Nigeria is one of those countries known for mass production of what we don’t consume and excess consumption of what we don’t produce. Most of the things we don’t produce however are usually things that have a close tie with technicalities and industry, if that is the case, the question is what is the government doing to strengthen undergraduates is this direction.

Perhaps the government is not aware that ITF did not magically descend from the sky like an overripe mango, it was created by Decree 47 of 1971 (now Act 47), the ITF is mandated, among other things, to promote and encourage the acquisition of skills in commerce and industry. It was also meant to be a place to help students acquire practical experience in their fields.

According to professor Sambo, while ITF requires N2.5 billion annually to pay the SIWES allowances outside other commitments, it gets only N985 million from government. If the ITF owes such a huge debt of allowances over such a fairly long period because its budgetary provisions are not met, it can only mean that it has not been fully discharging some of its core mandate. It also means that the Federal Government is not appreciating the essence for which this important agency was created in the first place. And this is unfortunate.

Well, my own nightmare seems to be growing faster than necessary as the time to go for IT lingers, I dare to speak on behalf on youth population of the Nigerian state that government will look into the funding of the Industrial training for undergraduate students.