FG Orders Nationwide Skills Centres Audit to Tackle Workforce Gaps

By Eshiorameh Sebastian in Abuja

The Federal Government has announced plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of skills training centres across Nigeria as part of a major push to bridge the country’s widening skills gap and transform its workforce.

Vice President Kashim Shettima made the disclosure during the 6th meeting of the National Council on Skills (NCS) at the Presidential Villa on Thursday, stressing that closing the skills deficit is a national priority critical to economic growth.

“What binds us together supersedes whatever divides us. We have to make this country work. We need to fill in the skills gap,” Shettima said, calling for immediate and united action to address the challenge.

He emphasised that the council’s mandate is to develop a skilled workforce capable of meeting Nigeria’s evolving economic demands. “This council was established with a clear mandate to drive the strategic development of the skilled workforce that can contribute meaningfully to national growth and prosperity,” he added.

The proposed National Skills Infrastructure Audit will involve a thorough review of existing training centres under various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure they align with national development goals.

The exercise will create a centralised database of all facilities, verify their functionality, and identify gaps or overlaps in infrastructure. “The government’s policy trajectory is to strengthen human capital development for national growth and industry through skills development. However, unless the skills infrastructure across MDAs is optimised, this vision will remain unattainable,” the council noted.

The Vice President described the meeting as an open forum for critical discussions and decisions, stressing that stakeholder engagement and decisive leadership are essential to resolving Nigeria’s skills and employment crisis.

The audit will also include physical verification of training centres and a detailed cataloguing of operational facilities to ensure they meet national occupational standards and labour market needs.

In a related development, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, presented the National Artisan Skills Acquisition Programme (NASAP), an initiative designed to train 10,000 artisans annually in high-demand construction trades.

The programme seeks to formalise Nigeria’s informal artisan sector by providing certification and onboarding qualified artisans onto a Digital Artisan Marketplace. “The overall goal of NASAP is to establish a reliable and competent artisan workforce to drive the Ministry’s housing and infrastructure agenda while empowering Nigeria’s youth with employable skills,” Dangiwa said.

He explained that NASAP is targeted at tackling youth unemployment while addressing the skilled labour shortage in the construction sector.

“It is projected to have a significant impact on both job creation and long-term infrastructure development,” the Minister added.