The Nigerian government, through the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), has launched the Skill Up Artisan (SUPA) programme for 5 million youths across the country.
Speaking in Abuja at the launch on Monday, the director-general of the ITF, Dr. Afiz Ogunsola Oluwatoyin, noted that the president had given the agency the mandate to up-skill artisans across the 774 local government areas in the country.
Today we are launching the SUPA programme for 5 million artisans across the country.
However, we cannot take all of them at the same time, so we will start the pilot phase with 100,000 artisans
“We have lined up skill acquisition programmes in 20 different areas, which had been on our website when the registration began in January till March this year.
We are expecting that the pilot set would commence before the end of this month, and we will publish the names of successful candidates that have been screened“After training, they will be licensed because we want to have a scenario where every artisan is licensed, and whoever that does not have, government will know the necessary steps to take,” Oluwatoyin explained.
He further said the trainings would be in Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin as every Nigerian understands at least one of these languages.