By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Presidency yesterday asked the National Assembly to collaborate with the Federal Government’s efforts at evolving skills-driven education in Nigeria towards tackling the growing rate of unemployment in the country.
The Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Technical, Vocational, and Entrepreneurship Education, Abiola Arogundade, stated this in Abuja yesterday.
She spoke at the formal inauguration of the House Committee on Polytechnics and Higher Technical Education.
She stressed the need for urgent attention to achieve a functional technical and vocational education to bring out the creativities in the youths.
Arogundade told members of the National Assembly on the occasion that an action plan on changing the narrative of the Nigerian education system from theoretical knowledge acquisition to skills empowerment is already being mapped out.
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She said, “President Bola Tinubu is committed to giving the important sector, the attention it deserves one of which is my appointment as the SSA on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education.
“Some of the programmes we have lined up in revitalising the sector towards making our youth to be skilful and productive are establishing a Nigeria Institute of Vocational Studies.
“We will also, upgrade the infrastructure of secondary and tertiary vocation systems, develop a national vocational teacher training curriculum as well as rebrand and restructure polytechnics curriculum in the country
“In achieving this, the curriculum of learning would, therefore, be tailored towards skills acquisition so that products of the education system could equip themselves with necessary skills and education to earn a living and be employers of labour themselves,” she said.
The SSA added that globally, technical, vocational, and entrepreneurship education had assumed a place of priority in government policies.
She said it was the foundation for employment creation, which the President Tinubu-led administration, would take very seriously.
The Chairman of the House Committee, Isiaka Adegboyega, said the shift in global attention to skills acquisition was a wake-up call for Nigeria as far as national productivity and the problem of unemployment are concerned.
He said, “Attention to technical and vocational education is a matter of emergency in Nigeria today which requires urgent inputs and actions from all stakeholders.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour, Senator Diket Plang, said the narrative of education in Nigeria should be changed from certificate to skills acquisition for the betterment of all.
He assured the gathering that both the Senate and the House of Representatives would collaborate for required legislation in that respect.
The Director General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies ( NILDS), Prof Abubakar Sulaiman, representatives of the Minister of Education, Rectors of Polytechnics in Nigeria, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, all made submissions on the need for a paradigm shift in the Nation’s education sector from theoretical knowledge to skills acquisition.
Arogundade assured them that her office and by extension, the presidency, would be at the forefront of the paradigm shift through speedy implementations of programmes highlighted.
