‘Skill acquisition crucial to solving youth restiveness, unemployment’

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono has identified skill acquisition as the basic ingredient to tackle the problems of unemployment, insecurity and youth restiveness in the country.

Echono posited that with the right skills, our youths can be self reliant, entrepreneurial and job creators instead of job seekers.

The official who spoke at a workshop on the ‘Retooling of Technical and Vocational Education Teachers’ said the training is aimed at building their capacity to enable them deliver the curriculum that will engender technological advancement.

Represented by the Director, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Ifegwu Oji, the Permanent Secretary at the five-day training programme held at Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Yaba said,” Our nation, at this point in time requires our youth to be highly skilled in order to solve the problems of unemployment, insecurity and youth restiveness, thereby enabling them to be self reliant.”

“Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of the critical areas that the government is focusing on in order to address the challenges relating to skills development and eradication of poverty. The focal area has identified strategies aimed at meeting national objectives.”.

Director, Technology and Science Education, Mrs Eyaru Tina said the training is in line with the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme of the ministry, which is aimed at training teachers to maintain and enhance their knowledge and skills for greater effectiveness and compliance with curriculum delivery.

She lamented the general problem of inadequate professional development of teachers at all levels of education in the country saying this has adversely contributed to the decline in quality of teachers, and invariably poor performance of students.

“A realisation of this anomaly has necessitated the urgent action to stem the tide and reverse the trend through the retooling of teachers.

In 2013 and 2015, the ministry conducted NEED Assessment of 21 FSTCs and some state technical colleges and the report revealed that majority of the serving technical and vocational teachers have not participated in any capacity building programmes since they were employed 10-15 years ago and so were deficient in practical skills. Consequently, they are unable to use modern machines/technical equipment effectively.

“Therefore, the need to improve technical and vocational teachers practical and pedagogical skills for effective curricula delivery becomes imperative, “she added.