Nigeria To Improve Female Technical Education
The Nigerian Government has pledged to improve the number of girls enrolled into technical education in the country for hands-on skills acquisition.
The Minister of Education Professor Tahir stated this while monitoring the ongoing 2024/2025 National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), exams in Abuja, Nigeria.
Tahir said the move would close the gender gap being experienced in the National Business and Technical Examinations.
He said; “For us in the Ministry, there are programmes already in place that supports the boasting of female education and I believe in no distance time we will see overall parity closing completely.
“I have been in the university and I know how the numbers are growing rapidly in engineering, environmental sciences, in medicine and allied courses, the ladies are practically taking over.”
The Minister said a “programme is equally being developed for schools, even at basic levels to begin to introduce skills in their studies so that upon graduation students would have been ready for the labour market.”
Tahir said the programme to be launched in August this year, would be made compulsory for all schools whether public or private.
“Once the skill programme is adopted, all schools will be bound to implement it and it’s going to be a game changer,” he said.
The Minister urged students to take up skills acquisition programmes seriously as they would address the problems of quality and employment in the country.
He urged students who would want to proceed to tertiary institutions to take advantage of the newly introduced National Education Loan Fund (a scholarship scheme) by the Nigerian Government to assuage their education financing challenges.
The Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Education Easther Didi Waltson-Jack described the conduct of the exam as being peaceful, urging parents, teachers, and the society in general to “create opportunities for the girl child to compete favorably with their male counterparts.”
The Registrar of NABTEB, Prof. Ifeoma Isiugo-Abanihe, during the monitoring exercise at Federal Science and Technical College, Garki said 67,751 candidates are taking part in the 2024 exam.
She said the number is a slight increase from previous records.
She said that societal attitude was responsible for the low female participation in technical education.
Prof. Ifeoma said there are enlightenment programmes ongoing on skills acquisition, stressing the move will improve building the country’s middle manpower.
She said the disparity in numbers of girls compared to boys, is a society issue stressing that the situation is gradually improving.
Prof. Ifeoma said; “We don’t have as many girls as you are seeing here in this school, you have over 100 boys and 31 girls.
“There is gender gap in the percentage of female participation in technical schools but it’s coming up…What we are seeing today is not what we used to see before.
“The female lady mechanics and the rest were not there before, so I am hopeful that there is going to be improvement.”
The examination, which started on June 24, is expected to end on July 29, 2024.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
