Home NEWS EDUCATION Dangote Academy Trains, Employs 700 Engineers

Dangote Academy Trains, Employs 700 Engineers

Aliko Dangote

The Dangote Academy has trained over 700 engineers and Technicians between 2011 and 2018 at its Junior Technicians Scheme (JTS), even as it offered most of them automatic employment.

The Group Executive Director, Capital Projects, Strategy and Portfolio of the Academy, Mr. D. V. G Edwin who spoke today, Monday at the induction of 100 new students, said that the Academy was established in 2010 to serve as the talent pipeline for the Dangote Group while filling in the industrial skills gap in Nigeria,

He said that the Academy has become necessary in view of the fact that Danhote Group and most industries in Nigeria cannot rely solely on Universities and Colleges of Technology to provide the specialized technical and managerial training required running major (modern) industrial factories.

According to him, the newly admitted Junior Technicians Batches 3 & 4 will be undergoing the eighteen months training programme in the hands of the most experienced Engineers in the world and in Cement Plants, with modern equipment and advanced technology.

“It is therefore expected that at the end of the 18 month training programme, these 100 young Nigerians being admitted today will become master technicians in any one or more of the following areas, namely Electrical Installation and Maintenance,Welding and Fabrication, Machining and Fitting, Mechanical Maintenance, Automobile Maintenance, and Instrumentation. All of these are critical skills area for the development of any community or nation.”

He said that the Group, through the Dangote Academy trained about 10, 000 employees in 2017 through delivered and supported training programmes.

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He said that the Dangote Academy is partnering with the German Association of Equipment Manufacturers (VDMA), National Office for Technology Acquisition & Promotion (NOTAP), Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), among others.

Also speaking at the event, the Head of the Academy, Hassan Salisu said that during the period 2011 –2017 more than 600 Trainees were admitted into different Technical Training, lasting 12 – 18 months at the Dangote Academy and most of them were employed by the Group at the end of their training.

He said that the “phenomenal expansion of the Group’s business all over the world, especially in Africa, has also created opportunities for the Dangote Academy to expand both in geography and scope.”

According to him, the training is part of the Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility and contribution to the employability of Nigerian Engineers and Technicians.

Monday’s inauguration of 100 new students under the Junior Technicians Scheme (JTS) Batches 3 and 4, further supports host communities of Obajana and Ibese in Kogi State, as 50 of the newly inducted trainees were drawn from the two communities.

The JTS Batch 3 is a regular run with candidates drawn from the whole country while the JTS Batch 4 is a special intervention by the Group to support the Obajana and Ibese Communities through provision of technical and entrepreneurial skills and invariably empowerment. [myad]