By Maryam Abeeb, Abuja
The Skill Development for Youth Employment, SKYE has called for more investment to reform the Technical and Vocational Education and Training, TVET sector.
The head of programme, Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE), Hans Bruns,who made this call during her opening speech at the National Conference on TVET, explained that there is need for good cooperation amongst all stakeholders in the sector.
The conference which was done in collaboration with the programme Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE) funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) was held in Abuja.
He lamented that Nigeria is currently facing tremendous challenges in terms of sustainable job creation and productivity.
Bruns noted that the momentum of reform to achieve good results was now the need for rapid steps to provide quality vocational education to the high number of young people.
According to him, TVET should play a crucial role in offering young people a promising future in Nigeria.
“TVET will work if we work together. We need good cooperation amongst all the stakeholders in the sector. This includes the public education providers, NGOs and private TVET providers, colleges, federal and state governments, the private sector, medium and large companies, sectoral associations, employers, and the society to support the investment that is needed to reform the TVET sector.
“In Summary and for successful TVET, we need three things; to understand that we cannot do everything alone, to listen and understand what other people are doing to be able to find a common ground for cooperation and to have the courage to let go of old ways of doing things.
“We need to open up and let something new emerge, especially now that we are going through a technological revolution that goes by the acronym of industry 4.0.
“It is worthy to note that the government of Nigeria has taken important steps in establishing the National Skills Council with the objective to develop skills for the nation through TVET.
“However, challenges are still remaining. Public education providers need to make education and training more relevant to the demand of the private sector,” he said.
