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By Merit Ibe
An educationist, Chief Livinus Okwara, has emphasized the need to infuse vocational skills acquisition into the secondary school curriculum to enable school leavers learn skills that could sustain them.
Okwara, the Chief Executive Officer of the Rimax Institute, a foremost computer training institute, made the suggestion at a briefing to herald the inauguration of the Rimax Institute’s Secondary School to boost skills acquisition among the youths.
Showcasing some learning aids and equipment that could facilitate vocational and contemporary learning in the school located in the Ojokoro area of Lagos, Okwara noted that the gap in education and the huge number of school drop outs prompted his delving into secondary education.
The educationist disclosed that the school with a 3,000 students capacity, situated in a serene environment, has began students’ enrollment for forthcoming session into all classes with a tuition fee of N500 per week.
Okwara said the jettisoning of the vocational skills acquisition of the 6-3-3-4 system of education has made school leavers redundant, unemployable and hopeless.
According to him, the students will have first hand training in computer, fashion, catering, word processing, engineering, mass communication and 20 others alongside contemporary teachings.
Okwara suggested that when students leave secondary school, especially at 16, they could be introduced to a stage of service to government for the next two year before gaining admission into the university, noting that by the training, they would be mature enough to cope with the pressure on campus.
“Allow the children finish at 16 and introduce a stage of government service, where they can be trained in vocational skills and mentally equipped for the university. Or else most of them will get into drugs and are culpable when they go into the university.
“Vocational training at the secondary school level will reduce pressure on the nation’s university as those who cannot make it to the universities can have something technical to fall back on.
“Tertiary education is not for everyone. Hands should be trained with skills to groom the industries and be enabling to earn living from it.
“The army of jobless youths in the country encourages the subsisting banditry, insurgence, kidnapping and other violence crimes the nation is contending with. But all those will fizzle out once people are equipped with skills right from school,” he said.
He urged wealthy individuals in the country to establish schools and make them affordable for people to attend to reduce the high number of the out-of-school children.
The industrialist stressed the relevance of education to national development, said that the low fees charged by the school was to enable more people especially indigent ones access education and quality one too.
He called for the Federal Government to grant an amnesty to the youths in the South-East to accommodate them and give them sense of belonging to quell the agitations there.
Okwara noted with regrets that the area has continued to be a war zone because of the youths’ resentment to state and the feeling of marginalisation. The educationist urged the Federal Government to initiate a social mobilsation programme to reclaim the nation’s youth before things get worse.
