Idris Bugaje, the executive secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), says university education risks losing value in a decade or two without a skill-driven curriculum.
The NBTE met with a house of representatives committee in Kaduna to discuss funding, staffing, and other challenges facing the board.
At the meeting on Wednesday, Bugaje said skills development remains the top agenda of the NBTE.
He said youth empowerment through skills acquisition in the polytechnics must replace Nigeria’s culture of social palliatives.
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The NBTE executive secretary warned that universities will become obsolete in 10 to 20 years without a skill-based curriculum.
“Skills is the way. Palliative is like giving somebody fish. If you teach somebody how to fish, he will be self-sufficient,” he said.
“Skills as we have always said in NBTE, is our top agenda because the entire world is now moving towards skills.
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“If somebody has a degree without skills, nobody will employ him. But somebody with skills, even without a degree, can get employment. He can even employ himself.
“In the next 10 to 20 years, university education will become irrelevant unless there is a paradigm shift. Unless universities imbibe what we are doing in the polytechnics by embedding skills into university education, they will become irrelevant.”
Bugaje said the culture of converting polytechnics into universities suppresses skill-based education.
“Google, Microsoft, all these big companies will always look at the portfolio of skills and certification that you have, not your degrees,” he said.
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“The world has already changed. It is only in Nigeria that we have the mentality for degrees.
“China converted 600 universities to polytechnics because they don’t deliver on skills.
Nigeria must change that attitude, we must come back to skills. We must convert some of our universities to polytechnics.
“Polytechnics must be repositioned to deliver on skills. That is the way to go.”
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