Nigeria : The full implementation of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in Nigeria will reduce skill gap shortages, improve productivity and boost skills of sector workforce, said Industrial Training Fund (ITF). SSCs are employer-led organizations that cover specific industries to support employers in developing and managing apprenticeships standards, reduce skills gaps and shortages and improve productivity and boost the skills of their sector workforce and improve learning supply.
Countries like the United Kingdom, Singapore, South Africa, among others have used the SSCs to improve skills and occupational standards. Recall that in order to provide opportunity for evaluating and validation of skills requirements at the national and state levels on a periodic basis, the fund entered into collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for the establishment of sector skills in Nigeria.
Acting Director General/CEO, ITF, Mr. Dickson Onuoha said that the SSCs take-off in Nigeria would reduce skills gap shortages, improve productivity and boost the skills of their sector workforce. He explained that the sensitization meetings towards the implementation of SSCs have already been held in Abuja and Lagos and have yielded positive result. Onuoha said that the SSCs would be driven by employer-led organizations that cover specific industries to support employers in developing and managing apprenticeship standards, adding that the National Automotive Council has established a sector skills council for the automotive sector and that there are SSCs for Information and Communication Technology, while other sectors are in the process of establishing theirs in the country.
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