The noticeable wide skill gap in the country is forcing a collaboration public and the private sectors that will lead to the establishment of bespoke technical colleges and vocation centres for the country’s manpower needs.
Demand for skilled manpower is rising in the country owing to efforts to diversify the economy but the available technical colleges and vocational centres are not capable of producing the required skills in relevant fields.
““There is the need for us to fill the existing gaps’ says the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono who noted the poor quality of graduates of the existing institutions.
““We have to improve quality in the mode of delivery and training and get them all relevant to the workplace and the industry.
“”We are working toward establishing several technical colleges, vocational training, entrepreneurial and ICT centres, among others.
“”Some of them will be by the private sector but some, by government both at the state and federal levels,’’ he said.
Echono said the new vocational institutions would be established after the ministry would have done a comprehensive national survey on areas that had shortfall in manpower production.
According to him, the ministry is embarking on a national skills gap analysis that will enable it to find out requirements for each trade or profession.
““For instance, we may need to find out how many teachers we need at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education, just as we will like to know how many doctors, engineers, architects and others.
“”Then we go ahead to find out how many more of these professionals we need and how many institutions that are producing them.
““It is possible that we are even over-producing manpower in some professions, but in others, we may not have enough and are relying on outsiders to meet our needs.
” `We intend to create conditions that will make it attractive for the private sector to take the lead in this’.
The official said that governments would fill the gaps in the aspects which the private sector might not be interested in.
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