NBTE boss laments state of technical education in Nigeria

THE  Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Professor Idris Bugaje has painted a gloomy picture of technical colleges in Nigeria, while calling on the government at all levels to invest more on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Bugaje spoke at a workshop on strategies for the implementation of Nigerian Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) in Colleges of Education (Technical), held in Abuja at the headquarters of the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).

According to him, skills are what are driving education in the world, adding that such have become very important in today’s economy and any education that wants to remain relevant must imbibe skills development.

He asserted that in the next 20 years, university education would become irrelevant unless there’s a paradigm shift towards skills, adding that this is already happening in some countries of the world.

While revealing the condition of technical colleges in Nigeria, Bugaje, disclosed that of all the 129 Federal Technical Colleges, none is worthy of accreditation exercise.

He said that all of them failed the accreditation because they lack qualified instructors, equipment, infrastructures and several others.

“In one of the technical colleges visited recently, a man who was acknowledged as a store keeper in a previous visit had become the principal of the school because all the qualified people had left due to poor motivation.

“Only the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members and store keeper are now running the school. Since a corp member could not be made a principal, hence the option of the store keeper who failed accreditation as expected.

“We need to reinvent the TVET and technical education. We need to quickly convert some of the conventional secondary schools to technical colleges and give more budgetary allocation to TVET and if possible, create a Ministry for TVET and skills.

“The NBTE is always willing and ready to support a technical education that will herald the desired development in Nigeria,” he stated.

Bugaje of the NBTE noted that these were some of the reasons the board felt that there was the need to strengthen its collaboration with NCCE, and starting with Federal Colleges of Education (Technical) to see how skills training under the National Skills Qualification Framework could be entrenched.

“We have introduced the Mandatory Skill Qualification (MSQ) in polytechnics; at least, every student must graduate with one skill qualification of his/her choice. Four credit units have been earmarked for that spread across two semesters. No student is permitted to graduate without an MSQ certificate.

“Henceforth, polytechnics will be issuing two certificates, the diploma and the MSQ, which will enhance the employability of the graduates.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, said the implementation of Nigerian Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) in the Colleges of Education sectenhance self-reliance and employability of graduates of the institutions.

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He said skill acquisition remains critical in reducing the unemployment rate in the nation.

Mamman, who was represented by the ministry’s director of Special Duties, Zubairu Abdullahi, expressed optimism that the implementation of the NSQF programme in the colleges of education would not only benefit the community and the immediate environment but would also contribute to the training of the skillful NCE graduates.

He commended the NCCE for partnering with NBTE to extend the implementation of the NSQF programme in the colleges of education.

“This initiative will surely contribute and support the Renewed Hope Agenda of President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in producing self-reliant graduates,” he said.

Executive Secretary of NCCE, Professor Paulinus Chijioke, said the commission had to bring on board the students of Colleges of Education (Technical) to afford them the opportunity of keying into the framework.

He noted that since last year, when the idea of introducing the NQSF into the College of Education (Technical) system came up, some activities leading to the successful implementation of the programme had been carried out.

According to him, the workshop was aimed at acquainting the target group: provosts and desk officers, with the modalities and strategies for the seamless take-off and implementation of the NQSF programme in the colleges of education (Technical).

He lauded the provosts for keying into the programme and sponsoring their staff to attend the training despite the obvious security challenges and economic situation of the country.

Chijioke noted that the NQSF programme is designed for the development, classification and recognition of skills, knowledge, understanding and competencies acquired by graduates from the training institutions.

He further explained that the framework “gives a clear statement of what learners have to do and how to do it, irrespective of whether learning occurs in a conventional classroom, on the job, or less formally.”