Over 80% of ITF-NECA Skills Graduates in Nigeria Land Jobs or Start Businesses

More than 80 percent of graduates from the ITF-NECA Technical Skills Development Project have secured employment or started their own businesses, ITF Director General Afiz Oluwatoyin Ogun said Thursday in Abuja. NECA's own records put the figure even higher, at roughly 90 percent.

Ogun disclosed the numbers at the 2026 ITF-NECA Stakeholders' Dialogue Forum and Outstanding Performance Award Ceremony. The project, launched on March 31, 2009 after a joint manpower survey, has trained thousands of Nigerians across more than 35 technical and vocational trades and now operates in all six geopolitical zones.

"The ultimate measure of our success is not simply the number of people trained. It is the number of lives transformed, jobs created, enterprises established, and industries strengthened," Ogun said.

How far has the project scaled?

The initiative has grown from six participating organisations to 84, Ogun said. Nineteen technical colleges have been upgraded and 10 centres equipped with new facilities to expand training capacity.

Trade areas covered include automobile technology, auto-diagnostics, electrical and electronic maintenance, welding and metal fabrication, construction, ICT, instrumentation and process control, agriculture, culinary skills, and carpentry and furniture making.

The project sits alongside the Skill-Up Artisans Programme (SUPA) and the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) as the ITF's main channels for practical skills delivery.

What is the government demanding now?

Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Jumoke Oduwole said Nigeria must stop measuring skills development by headcount and focus on quality and productivity instead. "This evolution demands that Nigeria move beyond a model of skills development that focuses only on the number of people trained and instead increasingly focus on the relevance, quality, certification, employability, and productivity of the skills acquired," she said.

She aligned the approach with President Bola Tinubu's Renewed Hope Agenda and the Nigeria Industrial Policy 2025. Priority areas she named include digital manufacturing, ICT, green skills, process and product innovation, and emerging business models.

"Industrialisation cannot be sustained without skilled Nigerians who can operate, maintain, innovate, and improve the systems that power industry," Oduwole said. "We must train people for real opportunities, not merely for certificates."

The ministry's Cotton, Textile and Garment pilot in 2026 produced 10,000 Made-in-Nigeria T-shirts within six months, she said. Scaling such value chains will need skilled farmers, textile technicians, machine operators, garment workers, designers, quality-control staff and maintenance technicians.

What did NECA's chief add?

NECA Director General Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde traced the project to a 2008 joint survey that found shortages in mechanical maintenance, welding, electrical maintenance, automation and instrumentation. He said artificial intelligence, robotics and digital manufacturing demand continuous upgrades to training.

Training alone won't beat unemployment if graduates lack equipment, he argued. He appealed to the Bank of Industry to provide starter packs for graduates launching businesses. He also cited NECA's digital skills initiative with the International Organisation of Employers and Microsoft: more than 101,000 young Nigerians registered for AI training and over 87,000 obtained certification.

Who else weighed in?

ITF Governing Board Chairman Hamma-Adama Ali Kumo, represented by Mercy Oyewole, urged employers to open facilities to structured learning and called for wider access to technical education for women, persons with disabilities and economically disadvantaged youth.

Minister of Labour and Employment Muhammad Dingyadi, represented by Ojelade Gabriel, called the partnership a commendable model of public-private collaboration and reaffirmed his ministry's support for employment-focused initiatives.

The next phase, stakeholders agreed, hinges on deeper industry participation, recognised certification, financing for graduate enterprises and closer alignment between curricula and the equipment actually used in workplaces.