The Federal Government, weekend, assured of its commitment to ensuring the implementation of the World Bank-assisted Human Resource Strategy for Skills Development (HRSSD) programme.
The HRSSD is a programme targeting the improvement of the skills of Technical Teachers and Instructors (TTI), under the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project.
Speaking to journalists at the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Stakeholders Workshop to validate and adopt the HRSSD Document in Abuja, the Acting National Project Coordinator of the programme, Simon Ogwu, said that the Federal Government will see to adequate teachers’ training.
According to him, “The Federal Government of Nigeria in partnership with the World Bank have graciously made this fund available for NPCU – which is the National Project Coordinating Unit to coordinate this activities, seeing that this Component Three is implemented to the fullest and we are committed to implementing this component three.
“The NPCU is committed to implementing and to see that we bring our teachers training to the fullest. The teachers are taking care of so that the students can equally be taking care of in our Technical Colleges. Once the teachers are trained, they can impact that knowledge to the students. This is the basis and we are committed to it.”
Also speaking, the National TVET Consultant, Professor Simon Yallams, said “so finally, the document has been drafted and this particular workshop is to now validate the draft and flag it.
“Once it’s signed off, implementation takes place immediately. As we are talking now, measures have been put on ground, technical teachers have been mobilize ready for training and retraining.
“And the training is starting with digital skills, pedagogy skills and soft skills. That is part of the strategy. As soon as the sign off is done, training begins in this long vacation for technical teachers and trainers”, he said.
Representative of the World Bank at the event, Dr Mistura Rufai, said TVETs in Nigeria are showing the problem in their sector, which is why they are neglected and have little or no intervention.
Meanwhile, explaining the programme in a chat with journalists at the event, the Communications Consultant to IDEAS Project, Dorcas Bello, said the HRSSD was the third in the execution phases of the project.
“The Federal Ministry of Education took a loan from the World Bank and the loan is targeted at revitalization and revamping technical education in Nigeria, for both formal and informal sector.
“So the project is divided into four. Component one is incentivising Partnerships
This aims at providing grant funding for the rehabilitation and upgrading of selected Federal and State Technical College (TCs)
“Component Two of the Project focuses on the informal sector which is handled by NBTE. But what is happening here is Component three, which is Improving Competency. This aims at improving the availability of appropriately skilled and competent Technical Teachers and Instructors (TTI)
“But for that to happen, a certainty has to be put in place, find out the gaps and build a strategy to address those gaps.
“For the past six to eight months, meetings have held, consultations have held from each geopolitical zone and workshops to get inputs of stakeholders both formal and informal because the document seeks to address teaching both formal and informal”, she said.