Executive Secretary, National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Professor Idris Bugaje, provides a deep insight into the newly launched Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiative by the Federal Government. He spoke at the monthly education dialogue organised by the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria (EWAN). TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE brings the excerpts:

Tell us what makes TVET different from previous initiatives?

This initiative is one of the major pillars of this government. I must confess that for many years, TVET has not received attention like it is receiving now in the country. The initiative is meant to give opportunities to young people to learn skills that can help them meet the demands of industries (construction, transportation among others in the country and also to easily get jobs elsewhere globally.

Part of the intuition is also to rejuvenate our technical colleges. As it is now, we have a total of 129 technical colleges in the country (federal, state and private) as against the over 15,000 senior secondary schools. The proportion is less than 1 per cent, meaning that TVET has been very poorly attended to. However, with this initiative, there is hope that more enrolment will follow, more admissions will be offered, and more young people will opt to go to technical colleges for training.

Before now, we had just 38 Federal Science and Technical Colleges in the whole of the country and if you visit these colleges, you would find 90 per cent of the students in the science class with only 10 per cent taking technical courses. The government is trying to reverse this narrative by converting those science and technical colleges to purely technical colleges.

Definitely, those who are already in the system will be allowed to graduate, but from this year onward, there would be no more intakes for science components in the colleges as TVET is designed to run in components. Every student will now be running technical programmes, under the supervision of the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB).

What are these components?

A component is the technical colleges that the government has rebranded into TVET 1, TVET 2 and TVET 3, which are equivalent to SS1, SS2 and SS3. Students will now be receiving monthly stipend, free accommodation and free feeding. Their industrial attachments will also be paid for because skills training cannot be done in classrooms and workshops alone; you must go and practice in real-life situations. So that is one component. We hope that by the time technical courses are repackaged, there will be an increase in admissions; parents will demand for more colleges and probably, the states will start converting conventional secondary schools into technical colleges.

Upon graduation how does the government want the TVET graduates to further their education?

Technical colleges are meant to feed polytechnics; it is the absence of products of technical colleges that polytechnics are taking inputs from senior secondary schools. In the 60s and early 70s, technical colleges were really feeding the polytechnics. That opportunity shall be recreated by God’s grace through this intervention. That is one component.

The second component is what is called Master 6; it is a six-month training course to be offered in skills centres accredited by NBTE. We have almost 800 of them already accredited, and the number keeps increasing, but our target is to move it to 1,000 in a few weeks.

Thus, those skills training centres are where young people will get training. Those who have uploaded their data will be assigned to some of these training centres for six-month training. The students will make their choices on the type of skills they want to earn and once the centre they choose is offering such skills, they will be assigned by the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). During the training sessions, they will be paid a monthly stipend; which was earlier a sum of N45,000, but now it has been reduced to N22,500; The tuition fee would be paid up to a maximum amount that hasn’t been decided, but probably around N150,000 to N180,000 for the six months, and they will equally pay for certification. This is because in skills training, we don’t allow the institution to issue the certificate.

Are there any specific requirements for this master’s 6 components?

No, you don’t need to have any educational qualification to partake in it. Even if you don’t know alphabet A, B, C… or if it’s only the Arabic alphabet you know, or you are an almajiri or an out-of-school child, you can register for it. The only requirement is your National Identification Number (NIN). Once you have that, you can be assigned to any of these skills training centres for your choice of vocation.

What is the Masters 12 component all about?

The Masters 12 is limited to vocational enterprise institutions only. Most of them are private vocational institutions accredited by NBTE, and we have about 84 of them nationwide. Of course, not all of them are fully accredited yet, but those that are fully accredited are also entitled to admit students for 12 months. The only exception is that for you to be admitted into any of these vocational enterprise institutions you up to age 15. So, they have to be young people, adolescents, not just anybody of any age. However, for the skills training centres that I mentioned under Master’s 6, even if you are age 40 and above you can enroll.

When is the commencement of this programme?

We are very hopeful that the technical college component will take off this September while Masters 6 and 12 will take off this July by the grace of God. The TVET is really being recreated, and we are going to see a lot of improvements in skilled labour in Nigeria.

What really informed this initiative?

It is meant to put things in proper perspectives. For instance, at the moment, we import expatriates from francophone countries in West Africa. Their youths are the ones doing the tiling, the finishing, the Plaster of Paris (POP) and a lot of other services at construction sites for us in Nigeria. You will see a lot of people crossing over to Maiduguri from Chad Republic to provide such services. Over the years, it is a fact that TVET is better in francophone countries than in Anglophone countries. We were at almost the same level during independence in the 60s, but they are now doing much better than us. The narrative must change.

These are some of the changes we are going to see at the end of the exercise, as a nation we will soon stop importing labour for different infrastructure projects. Look at the expansion of the railway, gas pipeline, the Dangote Refinery, the onshore and offshore services in the oil and gas sector, all of them are being offered by Asians across the nation. No other country will permit such scenario. The government has realised this and that is what we are trying to correct through this intervention. It will really give a lot of hope to our youths and the Nigerian economy will also improve.

What happens if there is no accredited Vocational Enterprise Institution (VEI) within an applicant’s state?

If that is the case, I will recommend that the applicant go to the skills training centres. Of course, the VEI will give a longer training up to the Masters 12 level, but that can only be offered by the accredited VEIs. However, out of 84 VEIs across the country, just a half of them have been accredited. Only accredited VEIs are allowed to participate in this intervention.

Are there any registration deadlines and submission requirements?

The portal is not closed yet; it will probably close early this month. For an application to be successfully submitted the applicant’s NIN and BVN must synchronise; otherwise, it will be rejected.

What is the sustainability plan for the initiative?

At the moment, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, is sourcing funds from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) for NELFUND to manage the promised payments. Though this is only a temporary arrangement. The long-term arrangement is an executive bill that is being prepared to establish what is called a National Skills Fund (NSF). The NSF will fund the new TVET initiative, and it will also fund all other skills development initiatives across the different MDAs and different sectors of the economy. This will be a very sustainable way of funding this programme beyond the tenure of this administration.

What modalities are in place to access the short, medium, and long-term plans?

The programme will be monitored physically and electronically. As I said earlier, TETFUND will give NELFUND a sum of N100 billion for the programme in the first year as a takeoff fund but in subsequent years, NSF is going to be the funding agency. Although there will be other projects to fund along the way. Ideally, the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) should have been converted to the Skills Training Fund but the ITF is well-entrenched, so, the National Council on Skills has decided that instead of upgrading or converting ITF to a Skills Training Fund, it is better to just create it afresh so that funding can come from ITF, TETFUND, NASENI, among others. It will now be used to also support other interventions. Nigeria must strive to make skills an important currency of its economy. Countries are leveraging skills to earn foreign exchange. Bangladesh has 11.5 million workers in the Middle East; India has over 50 million workers across the world. Nigerians can do the same. We have the most youthful population in the world. 65 per cent of Nigerians are made up of young people who are below the age of 25. So, the national skill fund is going to drive that agenda and other skills interventions to upskill Nigerian youth so that they can easily get jobs locally and globally.

How can students access the monthly stipends?

Stipends will be paid into their bank accounts once the training commences. That is why their NIN and BVN are a prerequisite. There’s also going to be a thumbprint every time they go to their centres for training. The thumbprint will be transmitted to NELFUND automatically. If you do not attend class for the required minimum number of days or you are consistently late for classes within a month, you may not get your stipend. So, regular attendance is required as all the accredited centres shall have thumbprint systems installed. (Nigerian Tribune)