Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, has engaged a world-class advisory services provider, KPMG, to transform the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to a high-performing regulator and strategic enabler of Nigeria’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) ecosystem.
The reform initiative is designed to strengthen NBTE’s institutional effectiveness, governance architecture, and operational capacity, enabling the Board to regulate, coordinate, and support polytechnics, monotechnics, and other technical institutions more effectively, while aligning skills development with Nigeria’s economic and workforce needs.
KPMG is one of the world’s leading professional services firms that provides audit, tax, and advisory services to local and international organisations, government bodies, and institutions operating in Nigeria.
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The Minister, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, said the Federal Ministry of Education had engaged KPMG Advisory Services to assess NBTE and develop a future-fit organisational structure, governance model and operating framework.
According to Alausa, the exercise aims to strengthen NBTE’s capacity, governance and service delivery while aligning it with the Federal Government’s skills development agenda.
He said a stronger NBTE was critical to achieving President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and developing a skilled, productive and globally competitive workforce.
The assessment will identify gaps in governance, organisational design, processes, workforce capacity and service delivery, with recommendations to improve the Board’s effectiveness, accountability and impact.
The resulting transformation roadmap will provide a clear framework for aligning NBTE’s structure and operations with its statutory responsibilities and the Federal Government’s broader TVET reform agenda.
Alausa reiterated that polytechnic education forms an integral component of Nigeria’s wider TVET ecosystem and must therefore be managed within a framework that prioritises skills acquisition, employability, innovation, and enterprise development.
This philosophy, he explained, is guiding the ongoing review of polytechnic curricula and the development of National Occupational Standards (NOS) to ensure that training programmes remain relevant to industry needs, technological advancements, and emerging economic opportunities.
Supported by a ₦1 billion intervention from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), the curriculum modernisation programme has produced 27 new National Occupational Standards and updated four existing standards, bringing the total number of reviewed standards to 31.
The standards establish a more coherent and integrated skills development pathway across the education system, spanning artisan-level training, National Certificates, Ordinary National Diploma (OND), and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes.
The Minister stressed that the reforms are intended to ensure that technical education graduates emerge with practical, market-relevant competencies that enhance employability, foster entrepreneurship, and improve national productivity.
Providing an industry perspective, Oluwole Adelokun, Partner, Strategy and Customer Solutions at KPMG Africa and KPMG in Nigeria, highlighted challenges and opportunities in Nigeria’s TVET sector, noting that 93 percent of the workforce operates informally and nearly 12 percent of young people are neither in education, employment nor skills training.
He added that Nigeria ranks second to Singapore in TVET graduate employability but stressed the need to modernise outdated curricula, address funding constraints, and shorten the five-year curriculum review cycle.
