A professor of Industrial Education, Kehinde Olúwaṣeun Kester has called for the establishment of a tax-based fund similar to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) to promote the incorporation of training into the culture of corporate and government organisations.
Kester, who is the current Head of the Department of Adult Education in the University of Ibadan made this appeal while delivering the institution’s 563rd Inaugural Lecture entitled “Thou Shall Sharpen Thy Tools” at the Trenchard Hall.
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He posited that the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution has brought about the need for every worker in Nigeria and globally to continually update and upgrade their skills, abilities and competencies to remain relevant and competitive in the labour market. He noted that the only means of making Nigerian workers to be adaptive and innovative to the challenges and opportunities provided by Industry 4.0 is through the process of training and retraining. This is because training is an important part of human resource development which helps to guarantee employee’s performance and productivity, and at the same time create competitive advantages for organisations in an increasingly unfavourable business environment within the context of industry 4.0.
According to the Don, it is only the continuously improvement of Nigerian workers’ skills, abilities and competencies in this era of rapid technological disruption and evolving job requirements that can guarantee improvement in employees’ performance and increase the productivity in level of all sectors of the Nigerian economy. He observed the need for training and retraining programmes that can support the development of a future – ready workforce that is capable of withstanding the rapidly evolving work structures and systems arising from the Industry 4.0 driven by emerging technologies.
Concluding the lecture, he made the following recommendations:
~ Nigerian organizations must incorporate training into their corporate culture, while aligning it organisational strategies and objectives.
~ Improve funding for training in all sectors, mandating 2% of annual payroll for both public and private organisations, and requiring employees and unions to contribute to development.
~ Federal government should establish a tax-based fund like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (Tetfund), where higher-profit making organisations contribute a percentage of their annual profits to workforce training and development.
~Training should be given a higher status as a full-fledged department in every Nigerian organization to ensure employees’ training is not left to chance.
~ An employment observatory inventory is recommended for all organizations to regularly assess skills gaps, identify existing or anticipated deficiencies, and enhance training-need assessment effectiveness.
