FG, Kaduna, NOUN target 12,600 artisans in 4 years
About 12,600 artisans in the construction industry will be trained under the Federal Governmen’ts Growth and Empowerment Project.
The programme will be run by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in conjunction with the Kaduna State Government and the National Open University of Nigeria.
The training will run from now to 2022, the Assistant Project Coordinator of GEM, Mr. Ndah Abu, said in a statement. He said this became imperative so as to be able address the challenge of housing deficit and the gradual decline of skilled artisans in the construction industry, notwithstanding the recent boom in the industry in and around major cities and peri-urban areas.
Mr. Abu said the GEM Project identified the artisanal sector as a productive area for investment in terms of job creation and value addition because artisans were known to be indispensable assets, from the inception of a construction project to acquisition of building materials, tools, equipment and finishing.
“GEM is, therefore, supporting consortiums of 26 housing developers in collaboration with the Kaduna State Government and the NOUN in the training of local artisans on modern construction skills.
“During the first phase of the support (2016/2017), about 800 people were successfully trained and more than 500 placed on various jobs.
The graduation ceremony of the first batch of trainees from the centre has been scheduled to hold by August 2018.
“The opportunities business that arise this support have necessitated the consortiums to expand their capacity to accommodate more local artisans as the programme is envisaged to train about 1,800 people annually. This number is expected to grow by 10 per cent each year for the next five from years. More than half of the trainees will be retained under the programme’s job outsourcing unit. Others will be linked to employers of labour for permanent job placement. By 2022, an estimated total of 12,600 trainees would have been trained and certified,” the statement read.