Kayode Olanrewaju The Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Prof Idris Bugaje, has the current Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) renewed initiative is to avail the youths the opportunity to learn skills that can help them meet the demand of industry in Nigeria, especially in skills areas in construction, transportation, oil and gas, among others.
This is as he noted that one major component of the TVET initiative are the training and skills that would not only help the younger ones and artisans to get jobs outside the borders of Nigeria, but also bring foreign exchange into this country.
Bugaje spoke during the June edition of the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria (EWAN), with the theme: “Interrogating Nigeria’s New Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET).” Participants at the virtual programme include the Rector of Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Dr Ibraheem Abdul; President of Congress of University Academics (CONUA), Dr Niyi Sunmonu; members of EWAN, among other stakeholders.
Welcoming the participants, EWAN Chairman, Mr Mojeed Alabi, said since the introduction of the renewed TVET, EWAN, as a network of journalists reporting education, has been inundated with inquiries from Nigerians on the modalities, procedures, target participants, centre locations, among other issues.
In response to these issues, he explained that the EWAN dialogue has brought policymakers and implementers, as well as other critical stakeholders to address the concerns.
“It is in view of this that as critical stakeholder, it is crucial for us to intervene in the issues,” Alabi added, stating that it should be worrisome to nation that Nigerian youth now ride motorcycles (Okada) and tricycles (Keke NAPEP), without learning trades only for the country to resort to neighbouring countries to hire artisans for building and other construction works.
However, giving more insight into the initiative, Bugaje described the new TVET project of the Federal Ministry of Education as one major pillar of this administration, even as he noted that for many years TVET has not received the attention it is currently receiving under the renewed hope initiative of the Federal Government.
The ES, who said part of the objectives is also to rejuvenate the technical colleges, wondered that today the nation has only 129 technical colleges, federal, state, and private, as against over 15,000 senior secondary schools, stressing that the proportion is decimally low; less than one per cent of the total.
Towards this end, he explained that under the new initiative, the 38 federal technical colleges have been rebranded from Federal Science and Technical Colleges, where 90 per cent of the students belong to science, with only 10 per cent for technical components of the colleges.
“So, the government decided to say, no, let us revert to what it was. Let all the 38 colleges be federal technical colleges, and from this year there should be no more intake of science component, but only technical component to run technical programmes examined by NABTEB,” he stated.
According to Bugaje, the technical colleges have been rebranded into TVET 1, TVET 2, TVET 3, as equivalent of SS1, SS2 and SS3, which will be free tuition, free accommodation, free feeding, and monthly stipends are to be given to students.
Besides, the ES added that the government is also going to pay for the students’ attachment to industries since skills training could not be done in classroom workshops as they need to go and practise in real-life situations.
As part of plans, he said the government is to create additional 36 colleges to make it a total of 74 colleges that will be run as pilots.
Bugaje further stated: “Our hope is, by the time technical colleges are rejuvenated, there will be an increase in admissions, parents will demand for more, and states will probably start converting conventional secondary schools into technical colleges.
