Prof. Idris Bugaje, Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), has stated that the board, in collaboration with polytechnics, will provide various vocational skills training to address young unemployment in Nigeria.

He spoke at a conference in Kaduna on Thursday to mark the 2021 World Youth Skills Day, with the topic “Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic,” which was chosen to review the position of young people in terms of skills and work during and after the COVID – 19 Pandemic.

Bugaje, who linked the country’s long-term insecurity to high young unemployment, suggested that equipping youths with vocational skills for meaningful jobs and entrepreneurship was the solution.

“The different vocational skills training would be introduced by the polytechnics based on the available industries in the area the schools were located. The board is equally working with the polytechnics to engage the informal sector providing skills training such that the trainees would be certified in line with the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF),” he said.

“The NSQF is a system for the development, classification and recognition of skills, knowledge and competence acquired by individuals, irrespective of where and how the training or skill is acquired.”

“Kaduna Polytechnic has already brought the Old Panteka Skills Market, Kaduna, into its NSQF training programme and we are encouraging other polytechnics to do the same.”

“This will formalise and certify the informal training being provided all over the country,” he said.

As a result, Bugaje has urged state governments to resurrect technical institutions that were shuttered three to four decades ago due to a lack of qualified teachers and equipment.

According to him, universities have the ability to produce the skilled labor required for infrastructural development, which will help the economy recover.

“The technical colleges if revived, will not only empower Nigerian youths with skills, but the youths would be certified under the globally accepted NSQF.”

“We are, therefore, calling on all relevant stakeholders, the federal and state governments, the private sector and development partners to come together and find a lasting solution to youth unemployment and insecurity, through vocational skills.”

“The federal government and the private sector are executing a lot of infrastructural projects across the country, but sadly these interventions are being implemented with foreign skill labour at the expense of the Nigerian youths because they lack the requisite skills.

“There is the need, therefore, for government and the private sector to work towards pushing the skills agenda to provide the youths with functional vocational skills, otherwise, the end to insecurity may not be in sight,” he said.

Source: The Vanguard.