By Funmilayo Adeyemi
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has allocated budgetary provisions for technical education in its 2025 Intervention Guidelines to address skills gaps.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, said this at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the fund and the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) in Abuja on Monday.
Echono, while commending President Bola Tinubu for his swift intervention in technical education, said this was the only pathway to job creation in the country.
He stated that if given the necessary attention, technical education would not only expand and grow the economy but also ensure Nigeria remains competitive in the global manufacturing market.
“Over time, Nigeria has come up with several policies on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
“We’ve tried to encourage technical education by prioritising it even in terms of job admissions, but you recall that the demand side and supply had never been in sync.
“And if you go around our campuses and our institutions, it would not be wrong to say that all these years, we’ve been paying lip service to the idea of promoting TVET.
“Our polytechnics that are intended to be the pillars of TVET in this country, many of them are offering courses that have no bearing with TVET,” he said.
Echono noted that laboratories and workshops were equipped with obsolete equipment, and many institutions lacked the necessary technical staff to manage their facilities.
“We are still grappling with the issue of power and ensuring that production can take place and teaching and learning can happen.
“The same is happening in our universities, and recently, Mr President had to make the remark on how we can sustain learning in the modern age.
“If the basic facilities for research are not in place, it’s a big challenge before us, and I’m glad that all the professional bodies are now taking it as a challenge to ensure that we reposition technical education,” he added.
Echono reaffirmed TETFund’s commitment to intensifying efforts to collectively eliminate the skills gap.
Earlier, the President of the NAE, Prof. Rahman Bello, commended the Federal Government for initiating efforts to revive technical education through the launch of the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).
Bello said the government had also incorporated National Skills Qualification Levels One to Six into Nigeria’s service scheme.
He, however, noted that huge support was required from all stakeholders to sustain and enhance progress through realigning and co-opting state-specific requirements to achieve the set objectives.
“We must continue keeping both the governments at the federal and subnational levels on their toes regarding their roles. The resourcing of both the formal and informal TVET is the key.
“It has been established that the gap existing for technicians and artisans in the engineering profession is an inverted pyramid.
“The shortage of technicians and artisans is obvious and needs to be reversed and urgently filled up,” he said.
On her part, the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Mrs Magret Oguntala, said the agreement would mark a new phase in equipping a critical mass of people with better skills for the workforce.
Oguntala also emphasised the need to revive and revitalise technical schools across the country to develop students’ interest from an early stage. (NAN)
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