The Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Prof. Idris Bugaje, has called for all secondary school students to be required to acquire skills to a minimum of 50%.

He claimed that doing so would enable the students in developing a deeper understanding of their interests and skills as well as their capacity for making decisions, all of which would help them advance both personally and professionally.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Bugaje discussed the board’s recently introduced top-up option allowing HND holders to earn a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in their preferred course.

Repositioning technical education and vocational training (TVET) for Nigerian secondary school students, according to him, would significantly help in discovering skills that could be fostered into successful businesses.

He continued by saying that in order to help students develop their skills, the nation should expose them to them early on.

“If you go to Germany, which has a dual educational system, they expose their kids to skills from early on, and at the secondary level, students spend three days in the classroom and three days in the workplace.

“By the time they are prepared for higher education, three-quarters of them attend polytechnics and less than a quarter solely attend universities since they have already been exposed during the training they received under the dual system.

Because they are unfit for the industries, Nigerian students who graduate from higher institutions find themselves without employment.

Therefore, he stated, “Government must change the course and insist that 50% of our secondary school graduates go for skills training in polytechnics, maybe 30% can go to the university, and 20% to the College of Education (COE).”

The executive secretary continued by saying that by taking this action, the government would be able to reposition the polytechnic institutions so that we would have professionals available to complete our projects.

He voiced concern about how frequently the nation hired foreign technicians while we possessed the skills to manage the numerous projects in the nation.

“If you look at the Abuja railway track, it was built by Chinese technicians, and we shouldn’t allow that to continue because it’s causing capital flight and leaving our young people jobless.

Why not hire one of our own? Skills training allows you to complete one level in six months and eight levels in four years.

“That is why we assert that the era of degrees is finished. Degrees used to matter a lot. The finest training method in the 19th century was a polytechnic education; it wasn’t until after the First World War that universities started to take main stage.

“All the breakthroughs we’re talking about, most of them never came from the colleges, electricity was found in the 19th century was not from the university, inventions were from artisans and craftsmen.

Therefore, he remarked, “let us develop our own, train them to acquire skills because you can have the degree but have no job.”

The board, he continued, had already taken action to separate the curriculum from skills certification.

Polytechnic students will now have to complete a skill-related component before graduating, according to Bugaje.

“Starting in October, every curriculum in the NBTE will include a skill qualification; if you do not earn the qualification, you will not graduate.

We are starting with the HND in computer science and have broken the course down into four. Students will now be required to visit Cisco, Microsoft, or any other of these major businesses and obtain a skills certificate on a certain skill.

“So, this is what we call dual certification, and it will give Nigerians jobs and a market for their young people.

“Indians are taking advantage of that; 11,500 youths from Bangladesh, which has a population comparable to that of Nigeria, are employed in various parts of the globe. Morocco sends around 500,000 young people to the Middle East.

“So we’re saying that Nigerians shouldn’t be left behind. They must seize the available skill opportunities, he urged. (NAN)