The National Board for Technical Education(NBTE) has charged polytechnics in the country to rise up to the task of producing efficient, skilled and productive manpower, saying that the nation needs more vocational training to drive the economy.
The board said that polytechnics have all along been doing technical education and very little vocational training, which is key to industrial development, warning that it will no longer accredit courses for polytechnics that fail to offer any skill training programme as a course.
NBTE Executive Secretary, Professor Idris Bugaje, gave the charge on Wednesday during a news conference in his office at the end of the 7th Industry Stakeholders Consultation on Skills Development.
The NBTE boss while reiterating the role of technical and vocational education training in the economic development of the nation, stressed the need for polytechnics to lay more emphasis on vocational training as the way to go in the country.
While calling on all polytechnics to partner with local industries in their environment for vocational training of their students, rather than concentrating on classroom activities, Bugaje said the stakeholders’ consultation meeting is to create the much-needed awareness on the Nigerian Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) as an important tool for the development of demand-driven skills training for the country.
The NBTE Executive Secretary noted that the vocational sector has not been properly handled whilst most of the technical education curriculum has not been reviewed for over 20 years,
He equally assured that the board will do a lot of advocacies for people to understand the value of technical and vocational education and bring all relevant stakeholders, particularly the industries on board.
source: channels tv
