From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has hinted that university education will soon loose relevance if relevant skills are not added to it.
NBTE Executive Secretary, Prof. Idris Bugaje, stated this in Abuja, at a meeting with some Provosts of Federal Colleges of Education (Technical) and other relevant stakeholders on strategies for the implementation of National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) programme.
Bugaje challenged Nigerian students to focus more attention on skills acquisition instead of paper qualifications, further stressing that in no distant time, individuals with relevant skills acquired from vocational institutions would get job opportunities faster than those with university degree but has no useful skill.
He said: “Obviously, skills are driving education and other activities in the world today. Skills have become very important in today’s economy in Nigeria and beyond. Any education or individual that want to remain relevant must embrace skills development. In the next 20 years, university education will become irrelevant unless there’s paradigm shift towards skills. In fact, it’s already happening in some countries of the world.
“That’s why we feel the need to strengthen our collaboration with the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), starting with FCE Technical, to see how skills training under NSQF can be entrenched.
“The challenge is how to get teachers and instructors upgraded to the new idea. Another challenge is the low levels of quality assurance assessors. These are people who are supposed to assess the trainees, and the assessment should be done on the job to determine if they have competencies to be issued with NSQ certificate.
“Thankfully, NSQ has been admitted into Federal Civil Service, with nine levels framework, 1 to 9. This framework has already done a strong handshake with other international skills qualification framework, meaning that with the certificate, you stand a chance to secure a job elsewhere in the world. This has, undoubtedly, enhanced the employability of graduates of FCT technical.
“In the Polytechnics, we have introduced Mandatory Skill Qualification (MSQ). Every student must graduate with one skill qualification. You must get a skill of your choice. Four credit unit is earmarked for that, and it’s spread across two semesters. No student is permitted to graduate without MSQ certificate.
“Henceforth, Polytechnics will be issuing two certificates to its graduates, the Diploma and the MSQ Certificate. This will enhance the employability of our students and graduates.”
He further stated that Nigeria has a lot of skill gaps, adding, “we celebrated Dangote Refinery even though it’s being frustrated by the some establishments, but I hope he will continue to stem the tide.
“Dangote Refinery was built by 150,000 workers, out of which 11,500 came from India with the needed skills. This is simply shortchanging the Nigerian youths. If our institutions have been producing skilled manpower over the years, that wouldn’t have happened. Available information indicated that thousands of the Indian workers are being retained for the purposes of maintenance.
“Similarly, the AKK pipeline project, 5,000 workers were needed. Mambilla project also require 50,000 workers. Unfortunately, our institutions are not producing graduates with the needed skills. Polytechnics are busy producing Diploma holders without skills education. Same thing with the FCE Technical. Sadly, industries are looking for portfolio of skills and not paper qualification. That’s what guarantee chances of securing employment.
“If you have the necessary skills without university degree or Diploma, you will stand better chances to securing job anywhere in the world because of your skills.”
The NBTE boss also highlighted the challenge is the state of Federal Technical Colleges in Nigeria. “The situation is very disturbing. You have to visit these Colleges to see the deplorable state of affairs. There is dilapidation of infrastructure, absence of qualified teachers and instructors.
“In one of the Technical Colleges we visited recently, we discovered that a man who was recorded as store keeper in our previous visit has become the Principal of the school, because all the qualified people have ran away because of poor working conditions and motivation. Only NYSC members and the Store Keeper were running the school, and the NYSC member cannot be made the Principal, hence the decision of the store keeper. And the failed accreditation as expected.
“Of all the 129 Federal Technical Colleges, none has accreditation. All of them, at the moment, have failed accreditation. They lacked qualified instructors, equipment, infrastructures and several others.
“We need to reinvent TVET and technical education. We need to quickly convert some of the conventional secondary schools to Technical Colleges. Give more budgetary allocation to TVET and if possible, create a Ministry for TVET and Skills so that Nigeria can refocus and give proper attention to skills development among the work.”
He said that NBTE is always willing and ready to support technical education that will herald the desired development in Nigeria.