THE Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Academy of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has graduated
more than 100,000 students since inception.
The NECA Director-General, Mr Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
He spoke on the sidelines of the graduation of the academy’s fifth batch of technical and skills development trainees.
The ceremony was organised by NECA in collaboration with the Industrial Trust Fund (ITF).
“There are two perspectives of graduations that we run: the first part is those who learn skills – technical and vocational.
“We are limited in paucity of funds, but within the context of the limited resources that the ITF-NECA project can muster, we have done credibly well to train over 100,000.
“Now, the second part of the project is support to technical and vocational institutions, “ he said.
Oyerinde said that the ITF-NECA project supported technical colleges in the six geo-political zones.
According to him, sometimes, the project builds technical workshops for technical colleges across the six zones.
“Those workshops, instruments and equipment are still standing there. The technical colleges are still using them.
“That is the impact that the ITF-NECA project is making, and we hope that government and other stakeholders will give it more attention and more funding so that the project can continue to meet its objectives,” Oyerinde said.
He said that contributing toward tackling unemployment was important to NECA and ITF.
According to him, unemployment breeds insecurity.
“Unemployment is a breeding ground for social dysfunction, banditry and so many other things, “ he said.
The director-general said that the graduates were expected to become entrepreneurs and world changers.
Oyerinde said: “We expect that some of them will become founders of ICT start-ups.
“Also, some of them will become very critical staff in organisations and will become entrepreneurs.”
