The Federal Government has restated its readiness to invest more in the technical training of teachers as a strategic human capacity building step to creating a sustainable technical education ecosystem.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, gave this assurance on Wednesday at the Annual Sensitisation Meeting of Stakeholders of Technical Teachers Training Programme (TTTP) held in Abuja with the theme” Developing 21st Century Technical Teachers; Preparing for the Future”.
While noting the challenges in the technical education sub-sector, including internal and external, Mamman said that apart from investing in technical teachers, government was making plans to holistically review the technical schools’ curriculum with a view to enabling them to play their roles in Nigeria’s human capital development.
He explained: “The TTTP has come at the right time. The ministry is working to have a balance between the regular education and the skilled based education of our children.
“Time has come when we need to train and graduate students who have skills to be employed.
“We are going to review the system holistically to be relevant to the society and for parents to see the value to send their children to school.
“We have programmes that incorporate technical training and such programmes bring students to school. This will solve long-term out-of-school problems and also prevent learning crisis”, the minister added.
The minister also pledged to channel resources to equipping the relevant institutions that provided skills to the students.
Speaking at the forum, the Director, Technology and Science Education Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Mujubat Olodo, reiterated the commitment of the department to provide training support for technical teachers ahead in view of their ever-increasing roles in national development.
She maintained that this remained the key to ensuring that students acquire the skills and competencies needed by them to succeed in the increasingly competitive global labour market.
