FOCI Empowers Artisans With New Skills

Following the continued scarcity of well trained artisans in the nation’s construction industry Federation of Construction Industry (FOCI), has moved to stem the tide, with the training of artisans to enhance their professional competence in the built environment.

The UNESCO Technical and Vocational Education for the Construction Industry training which was organized in partnership Federation of Constitution Industry (FOCI) Skills Academy and Bridging Innovation and Learning in TVET (BILT) to bridging innovation and learning in technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

Speaking on the theme of discussion: “Bridging Innovation and Learning,” president/chairman FOCI, Engr Nasiru Dantata said, the main objective of the theme is to teach the artisans and let them officially know that they play a crucial role in the building industry; to show them that they are stakeholders and must become change agents to build right.

Dantata said, “FOCI is a voluntary organization which care about how we work and we also care about our employees.

“The biggest thing that happened in the industry in the last five years is COVID-19 though the construction industries has bounced back and we are fully busy but with the support of both the state and the federal government as well as private sector that is engaging us. So many of our members are back to work.

“Today what we are discussing is the cooperation that FOCI is continuing to put up with very strong credible international organizations worldwide to support our efforts in training qualify Nigerians that we can work with through out our industry.”

He stated that FOCI already have their own internal training programmes and mechanisms and you can see our work is highly professional. How ever we want to expand beyond training our own environment but to just train Nigerians that can just go and work anywhere in the world. We just have one center in Abuja but our hope is to put heads together and expand.

Director general FOCI, Olubunmi Adekole stated that FOCI academy is one of the head institution worldwide chosen to fill this particular programme which is the UNESCO programme and we are delighted to that programme.

She said, “The programme is trying to find a way to put in innovation into the training of artisans and in the work place many innovations come in.

“So the purpose of this programme is whenever there is an innovation in a work place we quickly transform that innovation into training so that people can come and be train in that innovation and therefore can fit into the world of work.

“So all these programme is saying is that there are innovation going in the work place but people that we are training many of them do not know about innovation but with this kind of training people can key into new innovations.

“So what we are doing is that we are training the artisans that are work ready and we are partnering with UNESCO to learn better way of doing that.”

Project manager BILT, Mr Wilson Lima Junior said UNESCO is a core developing online tool which allow institutions to reflect on how their are performing in identifying integrity and implementing new qualifications and competencies. And FOCI is one of the eight institutions selected across the globe to partner with UNESCO in core developing this tool.

He said the tool is to prompt reflection by the managers, teachers and the students of FOCI on how teaching learning offered can be connected to what they mean in the industry and the society. This tools can help the instructions to better profiles the occupations that they offers.