From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has said more than 250,000 Nigerians were undergoing skills training under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiative at about 1,200 centres across the country.
Alausa disclosed this while speaking with journalists after an engagement with the House of Representatives Committee on Federal Polytechnics and Higher Technical Education on Tuesday in Abuja.
The minister explained that the President Bola Tinubu administration has repositioned technical and vocational education as a critical component of Nigeria’s education system and strategy for addressing unemployment and the shortage of skilled manpower.
“Before this president came in, technical and vocational education was almost totally dissipated in our country. But I can tell you, in a short three years, we’ve brought that back,”
Alausa, who explained that each trainee receives a monthly stipend of N30,000, while participating training centres receive N50,000 per student monthly to support the delivery of practical, industry-relevant instruction, stated that the funding arrangement was intended to enable training centres to engage qualified instructors and acquire modern equipment.
According to him, trades covered by the programme have been streamlined from 60 to about 22 priority areas, including fashion design, solar photovoltaic installation, electrical installation and plumbing.
Furthermore, the minister noted that the TVET initiative had attracted substantial interest from Nigerians seeking practical skills, with the first enrolment exercise recording about 1.3 million applicants and the second attracting nearly 1.4 million applications.
Nonetheless, he explained that the government was compelled to limit admissions because the number of applicants exceeded available funding and the capacity of participating training centres.
Earlier, the chairman of the committee, Fuad Laguda, while speaking after an executive session with the minister, said the engagement was purposeful.
According to him, “Our meeting was progressive and purposeful. We are satisfied and, like I said, we will be moving forward and having better engagements.”
“Information is power. Having more knowledge about what is going on will aid us in carrying out our expected duties and having oversight functions.”