By MUSTAPHA YAURI

The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) says a minimum of N75,000 has been proposed as a monthly allowance for interns under the one-year mandatory engineering internship programme.

Prof Sadiq-Zubair Abubakar, President of the council, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of an induction ceremony for engineering graduates into the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that a one-year mandatory post-graduation engineering internship programme for university and polytechnic graduates has been proposed before joining the National Youth Service Corpse (NYSC) programme.

Abubakar said Nigeria was the second African country to sign the Washington Accord, the accord enables engineering graduates to work globally after complying with some criteria.

According to him, part of the criteria are the one year post-graduation mandatory internship programme, adoption of a 10 semester system, and students indexing for each approved programme among others.

He, however, said the one year post graduation mandatory training was also provided by the ITF and COREN Laws but inadequate funding hinders its implementation.

?COREN as a regulatory body is liaising with the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), the National Assembly, NBTE and other key stakeholders to revive the one year post graduation mandatory training for engineers,? he said.

?A minimum of N75,000 allowances will be provided to the interns during the programme. The council is closely working with the National Assembly for a legislative backing and increased funding for the programme,? he said.

While lamenting that engineers in Nigeria had been degraded to be unemployable, the president said: ?We don?t feel good when our graduates are called unemployable.

?Industries cannot uptake them because the one year internship which is a global benchmark and standard is not implemented in Nigeria.

?We need our engineering graduates to have the requisite hands-on, competence and proficiencies to enable them to deliver and become more employable, hence the programme,? he noted.

The president, however, described the parallel accreditation of engineering courses in the country by both NUC and COREN as a waste of resources.

?The laws empower NUC to accredit all courses in Nigerian universities, while COREN laws also empower the council to accredit engineering courses in Nigerian universities and polytechnic.

?Therefore, there is an overlap, the laws of NUC cannot stop COREN from doing its job in engineering and vice-versa,? he said.

He said the COREN under his watch was developing a framework of a joint accreditation of engineering programmes in Nigerian universities by COREN and NUC for effective use of resources.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that COREN and NSE administered oath to the 885 engineering graduates of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. (NAN)

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