National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has reached an advanced stage in a Belt and Road proposal with China to reinvent, recreate, and re-engineer Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the country.
The Executive Secretary of the Board, Professor Idris Bugaje, stated this in Kaduna during a workshop to review and develop occupational standards and skills qualifications in 25 occupational areas.
He explained that once the proposal is finalized, China will provide the necessary infrastructure, machinery, and equipment, while the NBTE will roll out training programs for instructors to enhance the country’s technical education sector.
Professor Idris Bugaje explained that the Board was working hard to increase enrollment of students in technical and vocational institutions from the current 1% to 30% in the next couple of years.
‘when you graduate with paper qualifications,there are no jobs for you yet our psychologists in the country keeps telling us to go to universities and polytechnics and get paper qualifications. that narrative must change by making the Technical and Vocational Education and Training- institutions attractive’,he said
He commended the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, for giving the NBTE Board all the needed support to restructure the TVET sector.
‘the minister has insisted that we come out with dual certification ,
young people should come out of polytechnic and technical colleges with certified skills in areas where they are passionate on so that they can take up jobs in industries too.
‘we are moving technical and vocational education and training- TVET on a very fast track, not only on a sub-tertiary level but even on the polytechnic level,we are repositioning TVET and in the next two to three years we shall see the impact’, he narrated
The Executive Secretary stressed the need for NABTEB holders to be adequately and efficiently trained with skills qualifications of their choices that can be accepted in the country and even internationally.
In his remark, Project Manager of the IDEAS PMU, Abbati Dawakin Kudu, said that the Workshop which is sponsored by the World Bank, aim to develop and use effective ways to improve the skills system of Nigeria for competency.
Abbati Dawakin Kudu task the resource persons to use their experiences to design a befitting teaching curricula for skills acquisition qualifications from levels one to three of the National Skills Qualification (NSQ) framework.
Speaking on behalf of Skills Industries in Nigeria, Engineer Abubakar Sadiq appreciates the National Board for Technical Education in helping the sector develop skill concepts that will provide jobs for Nigerian youths both at home and abroad.
Radio Nigeria reports that the one week workshop draw over one hundred participants from across the country ,with the sole aim of developing a national occupational standards curricula in 25 technical areas ,both existing and new modern ways.
Cov/Teddy Daniel
