Boys Technical College (BTC), Aba, Abia State, is to include shoe and garment production in its curriculum, following the institution’s inclusion in the pilot phase of “Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills” (IDEAS) programme, a World Bank assisted project in Nigeria.
The project aims at enhancing the capacity of the Nigerian skills development system to produce relevant skills for the formal and informal sectors.
Consequently, World Bank is to set up mini-factories in the college to boost the training of properly skilled manpower in modern shoe and garment productions.
Ken Anyanwu, national secretary, Association of Leather and Allied Industrialists of Nigeria (ALAIN), one of the team of experts working on the project, explained that students from the college, on graduation would be employable within the Aba shoe cluster and outside.
According to him, “They will be technically trained because right now, most of the artisans in the Aba shoe cluster are not properly skilled to function in a modern shoe factory.
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“What World Bank is doing is to create employment, by investing in technical education. Abia State has been chosen to participate in the pilot phase of the project”.
He stated that BTC was chosen to train shoe and garment makers, because of existing skills in Aba, stressing that World Bank, would provide modern equipment in the college, so that its grandaunts, would be properly skilled, to take up modern challenges.
IDEAS project will strengthen the skills of 50,000 Nigerian students and enhance the capacity of technical teachers to better equip them for jobs in the formal and informal sectors.
The project aims to increase the female enrollment rate from 13 percent to 23 percent in technical colleges and provide recognized skills and certification to 3,000 youth after they complete an informal apprenticeship. This is financed through an IDA credit of $200 million.
IDEAS is one of the six projects approved by World Bank in February 18, 2020, to support Nigeria’s development priorities, including improving immunization, enabling a stronger business environment for the private sector, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation, and increasing public and private sector capacity on governance and social and environmental safeguards.
