Technical education board head calls for fewer universities

The National Board for Technical Education in Nigeria has advocated more funding and conversion of 60% of Nigerian universities to polytechnics to bridge the gap in skills deficiency among graduates, reports The Nation.

Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) Professor Idris Bugaje made the call on Monday 23 October in Kaduna at the North-West zone national workshop on the reviewed entrepreneurship and skills development curricular for entrepreneurship educators in Nigerian polytechnics and similar institutions. The theme of the workshop was a ‘New approach to entrepreneurship curricular delivery’.

Bugaje, represented by his special assistant, Dr Ibrahim Bashir, said: “For every engineer produced by a university, he requires at least five technologists, 10 technicians and 20 artisans in executing projects.” He said that the artisans and technologists were products of polytechnics, which called for a reverse in the funding process by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund to pump more funds into polytechnics.
Full report on The Nation site