The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has said Nigerian tertiary institutions’ curriculum is outdated and doesn’t reflect the real world.
Prof. Idris Bugaje, the Executive Secretary of NBTE, said this when the new and revised National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) curricula for NOS and ODFeL were presented to the public in Abuja.
Building infrastructure in higher institutions, especially polytechnics, without applicable curricula is ‘like having a good and well-decorated body but without a soul,’ he added, noting that the nation cannot afford to continue teaching kids with such a curriculum.
“Some of the already reviewed curricula were more than 30 years old, and the nation cannot continue to use obsolete curricula to teach our students. As I speak, there are many more 20th Curricula awaiting review.
“We, therefore, require, more than ever before your continuous support in ensuring proper funding to be able to discharge this very important task”, he posited.
Bugaje said that once more than 60 new and revised curricula, National Occupational Standards (NOS), and Open, Distance and Flexible e-Learning (ODFeL) Courseware in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) are made, employers won’t have to retrain Nigerian college graduates.
He said that the new and revised curricula were long overdue because they would help give institutions a general guide to the body of knowledge and skills while also fixing the country’s problems with getting people jobs.
He says that the number of developed regulatory instruments that will be made public today is only about 15%.
So, he said that the board needed to keep making changes and reviewing them to meet national and international standards.
“The board has over 350 curricula, NOS, and ODFEL courseware in the Nigerian TVET system.
“The notable quality of these curricula is that they are industry-driven, developed and/or reviewed with the full participation of the Nigerian industries to address the employability problem often encountered by our diplomates upon graduation.
“The problem of employers of labour incurring additional cost to retrain our products to fit into their operation is hopefully being solved.
“The peculiar type of training that should be given to Polytechnic and Monotechnic students in line with the national objective of encouraging youths economic self-reliance, entrepreneurship as a programme has, more than ever before, become one of the key features of the reviewed curricula,” he stated.
He named ND/HND in Petroleum and Gas Processing Engineering, Transport, Planning and Management, Strategic Communication and Media Studies, Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Organic Agricultural Technology as some new and revised programmes.
He also said that Homeland Security, Driving an Articulated Vehicle, Operating Construction Equipment, and Traditional and Herbal Hygiene were all part of the new and revised NOS for skill training.
Bugaje also said that the National Council on Establishment (NCE), at its last meeting in Yola, agreed to add some of these TVET courses, like the National Innovation Diploma, to the schemes of service of the Federation (NID).
He said that this made two African countries interested in the quality of our system. Rwanda signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), and Morocco was about to do the same.
