Dearth of Technical Colleges in Nigeria - By Titilope Gafar

The Government's tale of a technical education as a recipe for the creation of jobs for the youth of this country is a good idea, however good this sounds, it all ends on the back pages of the newspaper albeit lacking in sincerity. In lieu of this, I am prompted to ask some mind boggling questions; 1. How many technical schools do we have in Nigeria altogether? For instance, In Ogun State, we have a meagre five Technical Schools which is barely enough to start with. Out of those five, four is owned by the state government and one is owned by the Federal Government. Currently, Ogun State has a population of over 3 million people, the few colleges we have is far below the minimum requirement of the Millenium Development Goals , MDG’s Vision 2020.

2. Was Technical Education even structured in our educational policy? I don’t think so. From inception, technical education was never structured in our education policy. Right from the time of Prof. Babs Fafunwa, as the minister for education, with his 6.3.3.4 education system and even the new 9.3.4, being followed now, none reflected the importance of technical education, when the government knows that its the only panacea to the problem of unemployment. 3. Are the technical schools well funded? During one of my recent visit to the technical college in ijebu-ode, almost all machines, equipment and infrastructures are in devastating state. 75% of all machines were not in good working conditions. They were just there as mere symbols of decoration occupying space. Little or no fund is being given out to run these schools and all activities in their laboratory seem to be at comatose. This result in theoretical knowledge, no practical experience, poor training, poor product. 4. How many technical schools have been established in the country in the last 20 years? “Walahi” NONE! None, of the federal government, state government and private institutions. The churches are now in the habit of establishing universities, whose bill cannot be afforded by the large majority of their church members. They establish the schools with the motive of making profits which is the opposite reason why the missionaries, who brought in religion into the country, brought in western education. Education then was seen as service, rendered at no cost, meant to empower everyone, both the rich and the poor. They are supposed to come to the rescue by establishing technical schools, but it's never so. The students of these schools do go out for industrial attachments, but they hardly get places of placement which will help them improve the skills learnt in school. Many of them are always rejected and the few ones that are absorbed are made to face hard labour at work without pay. Even some places where they are supposed to be absorbed, they have many expatriates, also products of technical schools from other countries, doing the same job and being paid good money as salaries and allowances. Quota system, for the employment, for foreign companies in our labour law seem not to be effective anymore. Foreign companies employ people from their countries to take up jobs that can be done by Nigerians. Times without number calls have been made to the labour minister on this but it all falls on deaf hears. After all these, the products of the technical schools, roam the street, still unemployed, no job, no start up capital, and the problem of unemployment persists. The writer can be engaged further on twitter @titigafar.