The issue of technical skill acquisition in Nigeria has not
received considerable attention says a technology teacher, Prof. Abdullahi
Shehu Ma’aji of industrial and technology education, Federal University of
Technology, Minna, Niger State.
DigitalSENSE
Business News reports that while presenting a paper at the 2013 national
conference of the German Alumni Association of Nigeria (GAAN) in Abuja on
Saturday, on ‘Technical Skill Acquisition in Nigeria, the need for entrepreneurial
industrial Development, Prof. Ma’aji decried the attention currently being
received by technical education in the country.
“It has not been given the attention it deserved unlike the
other sector of the economy,” he lamented.
Ma’aji also noted that emphasis in Nigerian educational
institutions has been an academic qualification instead of skill acquisition
and problem solving activities.
According to him, there is a wide gap between the curriculum
content being taught in the tertiary institutions that is the theoretical
aspect and the practical skills needed by the employees of labour and the world
of work.
Lack of resources, poor funding or vocational and technical
education, he said, have resulted in the problems such as inadequate teachers,
low quality of students, epileptic power supply in addition to short supply of
knowledgeable and competitive workforce.
He recalled that the United Nation’s Education, Scientific
and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) had concluded as far back as 2009 that the aims
of various governments to combat poverty through establishment of different
programme aimed at job creation and poverty reduction have failed and many
continued to fail because graduates of previous higher institutions lack the
requisite practical skills.
Prof. Ma’aji further said that value re-orientation, poverty
reduction, wealth creation and employment generation commonly known in Nigeria
as NEEDS – National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, could hardly
be accomplished without developing technical and vocational education.
He highlighted that technical education as entrenched in the
Nigerian National Policy on Education is concerned with qualitative
technological human resources development directed towards a national pool of
skilled and self-reliant craftsmen, technicians and technologists in technical
and vocational fields.
Ma’aji maintained that two key phrases which readily come to mind in this type of education are competency-based skill acquisition and sound scientific knowledge.
Remmy Nweke in Abuja
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Pix: Prof. Abdullahi Shehu Ma’aji clinching his copy of DigitalSENSE Business News
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