The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) and the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) are exploring a partnership to expand access to vocational and technical training, with a focus on equipping Nigerian youths with practical skills for employment and entrepreneurship.
The proposed collaboration is expected to support artisans and aspiring craftsmen through hands-on training, including instruction from expatriate trainers and opportunities to earn internationally recognised certifications.
The initiative offers a practical alternative to Nigeria’s long-standing skills development challenge, where education and training have often been criticised for placing greater emphasis on theory and certificates than practical competence.
A recent visit to one of the training centres by ITF Director of Special Duties, Kayode Alakija, highlighted the progress made by participants after only three weeks of training.
At the tiling section, trainees recreated a real-life toilet environment, including installing a water closet and tiling around it. In the carpentry workshop, participants were producing benches, racks, rafters and roofing structures.
The programme also covers drylining, painting and decoration, bricklaying and block making, combining classroom instruction with practical exercises designed to prepare participants for real construction and work environments.
One of the carpentry trainees, Mukta Oloriegbe, said the programme had exposed participants to workplace safety practices that are often overlooked by informal artisans.
The training comes amid wider concerns over Nigeria’s human capital and employment challenges. UNICEF has reported that 75 per cent of Nigerian children aged seven to 14 cannot read a simple sentence or solve a basic mathematics problem, highlighting the country’s broader learning crisis.
The National Bureau of Statistics also reported an unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2024, while informal employment accounted for 93 per cent of employment. This makes practical skills particularly important for Nigerians who rely on trades, self-employment and small businesses for their livelihoods.
NELFUND had earlier announced plans to extend its student loan programme to vocational and skills acquisition programmes following a directive from President Bola Tinubu.
In November 2025, NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed plans to expand financing to Nigerians pursuing skills development programmes. The proposed partnership with ITF could provide the practical training structure to support that expansion.
NELFUND’s existing financing platform could also provide a foundation for scaling vocational education. As of August 2026, the Fund had received about 1.6 million applications and disbursed more than N322 billion across 319 beneficiary institutions.
Alakija said ITF intends to replicate the training model across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones, while artisans and master craftsmen from ITF-accredited centres would be exposed to the approach.
The programme’s trainers said participants were progressing rapidly. Carpentry tutor Andy Cranham said trainees had moved from basic joints to constructing truss rafters and hand-cut roofs within three weeks.
Alakija said the long-term objective was to produce thousands of skilled artisans consistently over several years, creating a critical pool of workers capable of meeting domestic demand and reducing reliance on foreign artisans.
If scaled nationally, the NELFUND-ITF partnership could create a pathway for Nigerians to finance and acquire practical skills in trades such as carpentry, tiling, painting, plumbing, electrical work and bricklaying.
For MSMEs, a larger pool of trained artisans could improve access to skilled labour while creating opportunities for young Nigerians to establish and grow businesses around technical trades.
The key challenge will be moving the partnership from exploration to a sustainable national programme that combines affordable financing, quality practical training, recognised certification and clear pathways into employment and entrepreneurship.