The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has called on Polytechnics and the Colleges of Education (COEs) to proritise academic programmes’ that will bring about innovations that would position the country on the path of rapid development.
The Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, who decried drop in low and medium skilled jobs in Nigeria, said it was unfortunate that most of the medium skilled jobs were being handled by people from Francophone countries.
Speaking while declaring open a Two-Day capacity building workshop for heads of selected institutions and staff of TETFund Centres of Excellence on Tuesday in Abuja, Bogoro called on COEs and the polytechnics to focus on development, entrepreneurship and start-ups.
Stressing the need to improve on their capacity, TETFund boss explained that it is only by initiating new innovations that the country will be on the path of rapid development.
He said the two-day event was organised to ensure proper understanding of the concept of the centres by those that will be in charge of them.
According to him, “For the polytechnics, the centres of excellence are to focus on skills development and support entrepreneurship, start ups.
“In areas of competitive advantage and you know that skills development is central, it is fundamental. If you miss that area, if your polytechnics does not have the capacity to develop skills or the entrepreneural ability of its students and researchers, then it has failed the nation.
“If you go to construction sites, it has improved recently, believe me, Some 10 years back, you will see Francophone personnel that are at construction site more than Nigerians, that shows something is missing, but the polytechnics are trying to address it.”
Saying that the Centres of Excellence in the colleges of education will focus on relevant pedagogical development, Prof Bogoro added that beneficiary centre will get about $2million.
Executive Secretary of National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Prof. Idris Muhammad Bugaje, commended Bogoro for his passion for institutionilisation of Research and Development.
The NBTE boss also expressed serious concerns that most major infrastructure projects in the country are being dominated by skilled personnel from other countries.
According to him, there is need for our polytechnics to be focused on skills training, “that is why we say from 2023, NBTE shall never go for any accreditation to any polytechnic where there is not a single skills training centre.”
Recall that TETFund recently established Centres of Excellence in six polytechnics and six colleges of education.
The beneficiary institutions selected from each of the six geo-political zones in the country are; Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa, Nasarawa State; Federal College of Education, Pankshin, Plateau State (North Central), Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, Bauchi State, Federal College Education, Yola, Adamawa State, (North East), Federal Polytechnic, Kaduna, Kaduna State, Federal College of Education, Zaria, Kaduna State (North-West).
The South-East has Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Imo State and the Alvan Federal College of Education, Owerri, Imo State. The South-South’s beneficiaries include Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State and Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku, Rivers State while Yaba College of Technology, Lagos and Adeyemi College Education, Ondo State made it from the South-West.
