Nigeria May Need to Consider Improved Technical, Vocational Education to Achieve Better Skilled Labour, Productivity

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the most populous black nation in the world.

There are 99 private universities, 94 Federal and State Universities totalling 193 universities in the country. Nigeria also has 79 Federal and State polytechnics and 5 there are 123 technical colleges listed on Nigeria’s board for technical education website.

Over the years, many admission seekers in Nigeria have preferred universities to any other institution. The country has however continued to suffer from inadequacy in terms of admission quota for those wanting a university education as many get rejected yearly. The reason is simple, there is not enough room to accommodate them

According to official figures on the website of the Nigerian Universities Commission, the total undergraduate enrollment (1st year to final year) capacity of 146 universities in Nigeria stood at 1.7 million.

In the same year, it was reported that 1.7 million persons sought admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Of that number only 850,000 candidates could be admitted into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education combined. 

The admission strength of all Nigerian universities is put at 400,000. This is a classic camel through the needle’s eye for the 1.7 million admission seekers into tertiary institutions in the country.

A report had noted that only one out of every four Nigerians seeking admission into a University end up getting admitted.

The few who make it into the university face the challenge of unemployment. Nigeria has an estimated 33% of its population unemployed according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics.

Can technical and vocational education bridge the gap of access to education and answer the question of unemployment as well?

According to a publication by the Department of Vocational Education, Nnamdi Azikwe University “Technical and vocational education is used as a comprehensive term in the educational process involving, in addition to general education, the study of technologies and related sciences and acquisition of practical skills, attitudes, understanding and knowledge relating to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life”.

A publication by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation noted that “Technical and vocational education helps increase citizens’ potential to innovate and transform the economy and society through dynamic skills provision”.

However, in Nigeria, technical and vocational jobs are largely unskilled and practitioners learn the job through apprenticeship without any form of certification. Consequently, most practitioners are uneducated or semi-educated and the fields where they operate are not captured within the formal sector. Thus the contribution of vocational and technical skills to the economy is at best minimal.

A publication by the International Labor Organisation shows that 93% of Nigeria’s employment is informal. Within this 93% is where most vocations sit. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in a report noted that Nigeria needs to fill the skill gap especially to create employment and meet its human resource demands. A review of vocational and technical education in Nigeria could become a funnel for filling the skills gap and ensuring that a significant number of that 93% become part of the formal sector in the near future.

How Have Other Countries Designed Economically Beneficial Education Systems that Lay Emphasis on Vocational and Technical Skills?

In China vocational education and training is offered from the junior secondary level up to the tertiary level. The system is designed to link higher education directly to vocational training so that graduating from a junior secondary vocational school qualifies the student to continue vocational learning at the senior secondary level and up to the tertiary level. According to the country’s website “the proportion of regular senior high school students among all the students in senior secondary education has decreased from 81% to 54.7%, while the proportion of secondary vocational school students has increased from 19% to 45.3%. From l980 to 2001, secondary vocational education institutions produced 50 million graduates, fostering millions of secondary-level and primary-level technical workers, managers, skilled workers and other labourers with good vocational and technical education.” China’s vocational education system ensures skilled labour across a wide spectrum of skills.

The International monetary fund attributed the growth of China’s economy to issues such as increased productivity, increase in the number of workers, new factories, manufacturing machinery among others.

Switzerland also runs a Vocational Education and Training System that starts at the lower secondary level for either a two-year vocational education and training programme with a federal VET certificate or a three to four-year VET programme with a federal VET Diploma. The system combines theoretical/formal learning with training/internships with organisations for practical learning.

Today, Switzerland has the highest skilled labour in the world according to the World economic forum.

In Denmark, the VET system combines a general upper secondary education with vocational education and training. The scheme qualifies students for a job as well as gives them direct access to higher education in a wide range of programmes. Some of the programmes listed include hairdressing, carpentry, electrician, gardener among others. 

Nigeria’s Pressing Need for Skilled Labour

Technical education may help to reduce Nigeria’s constantly rising unemployment rate (currently at  ) especially in the area of productivity and labour efficiency.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2019, Nigeria’s service import stood at $38.7 billion, services that could potentially be provided locally. The President of the Council for Regulation of Engineering(COREN) in Nigeria, Ali Rabiu,  was quoted as condemning the influx of artisans into the country, describing it as shameful.

A report by the Centre for Study of Economies of Africa noted that;“ With a significant proportion of students graduating with archaic and theoretical knowledge that is of little or no relevance to labour market skills demand, employers of labour are forced to re-train new employees at prohibitive costs”.

The World Bank in a report said “Formal skills development system in Nigeria suffers from capacity constraints and low external efficiency due to absences of linkages between curriculum design and labour market information”

Although Nigeria has an existing culture of apprenticeship where young persons get training in different skills such as tailoring, carpentry among others; these categories largely fall under the unskilled labour umbrella, the training is not considered as “education” as there is no standardized module or curricular and it does not come with any widely accepted certification. Workers are also not infused into society in an economically advantageous way.

There is also the challenge of cultural and social perception of vocational training and bias. Vocations such as gardener, hairdresser, plumber, carpentry etc. all courses offered in Vocational Education Training of developed countries are considered low-level jobs for uneducated people in Nigeria. Most parents want their kids in professions like medicine and engineering so they can become doctors, engineers etc. 

Much might need to be done to change the perception of vocational and technical skills as worthy alternatives to other professions.

Obafemi Omokungbe, Rector of YABATECH was quoted as saying“even when a parent knows that his child cannot cope after JSS 3 and he is told, he would rather take that child to another school than let him go to a technical college. The parent would erroneously think that the innocent boy has become a failure because he cannot complete secondary school.”

What Does Nigeria’s National Education Policy Say On Vocational and Technical Education

The Nigerian National Education Policy document seen by Dataphyte reviewed as at 1998 and re-produced as at 2004 interestingly makes several provisions for technical and vocational education.

For instance, the provision stated that a Nigerian must be provided with basic tools for further educational advancement including preparation for trade and crafts of the locality.

The policy further stated that;

“Secondary education shall provide trained manpower in the applied science, technology and commerce at sub-professional grades”. Some of the skills that can be learned include auto-mechanic, woodwork, metalwork, building construction etc.

It was further provided that students who complete junior secondary school shall be streamed into; senior secondary school, the technical college, and out of school vocational training centre or an apprenticeship scheme.

Nigeria also has the National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) established in 1992 that has the mandate to domesticate craft level examinations.

Like other levels of education, poor funding has been blamed for the poor infrastructure of polytechnics and monotechnics/technical colleges in Nigeria, with lecturers downing tools on different occasions.

The social bias against any tertiary certification that is not a bachelor’s degree is so significant that there are pay differences between holders of bachelor’s degrees and other forms of certifications. Entry requirements for jobs often disproportionately favour University graduates.

Although there have been attempts to address the disparities including a law to abolish the practice. It is important to note however that these actions are targeted at equaling the scales between polytechnics and universities and technical colleges are not clearly captured or represented in the conversation.

Education Administrators Agree that Technical and Vocational Education Carries Potential and Needs More Support In Nigeria

The Vice Chancellor of Nigeria’s first Technical University, TechU Ibadan, Professor Ayobami Salam, told Dataphyte that there is a dire need to bridge a wide gap in the country through technical education.

He noted that as a consuming economy, Nigeria imports things that are produced through technical and vocational training by other countries, thus selling out barely available forex to the detriment of the countries’ prosperity. Nigeria not only imports equipment but also imports the technical hands to use them.

Prof Ayobami urged that for Nigeria to get it right, there is a need  to correct a blunder ‘as grave as neglecting technical education.’ To do this, he recommended that technical education should be introduced and strengthened in Nigeria’s education policy.

Osun State University is one of Nigeria’s universities that has begun to incorporate technical education into its curriculum. The former dean of students’ affairs of the varsity, Dr Adepeju Adigun noted that students who gain admission into the university system are mandated to enrol for a technical/vocational skill once they are in their 100-level. She said that the belief of the institution is that this will make them self reliant and help them to sustain themselves even after campus. The former student affairs head noted that the varsity does not just encourage technical education but after graduation, it makes financial provisions to assist the students in setting up businesses where they choose to do so.

She noted that there is a need to support students who learn skills and as such, it is a priority for the institution.

On the falling standards of technical education in Nigeria, Dr Adepeju stated that many years before now, many Nigerians after graduation proceeded to technical colleges or skill centres and they ended up self-employed while some persons even got government jobs based on these skills. 

The educationist also noted that years before now it was a thing of pride to attend technical colleges and afterwards a student may decide to proceed to polytechnics which were designed to be a follow on as the curricular is practical. She clamoured for a return to the old curriculum of Nigerian polytechnics. She expressed concerns that things are changing and even polytechnics are changing their curriculum, shying away from their original essence. According to her, polytechnics are meant to deliver practical learning while universities are more theoretical but in the current day, many polytechnics have shifted their curriculum to be theoretical rather than practical.

The dean of student affairs at the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Segun Aninkan, noted in conversation with Dataphyte that there is a need to stop the disparity between graduates of polytechnics and those of universities to move technical education forward in Nigeria.

He noted that in MAPOLY, students are encouraged to take entrepreneurship skills while there is premium attention on skill development.

Mr Segun opined that there is need for policymakers to further understand the importance of polytechnics and technical education. 

He revealed that Moshood Abiola Polytechnic has the license to award a Bachelor of Technology degree but it is at the moment only open to graduates of the Ordinary National Diploma who demonstrate the skill and intelligence. 

MAPOLY’s B-Tech award could be a follow-on system of awarding a higher degree for advancing in a technical skill similar to the system in China and other countries with a functional VET system.

Does Nigeria have the Capacity to Capture the Informal Sector To Ensure an Organised Vocational, Technical Sector?

In Nigeria, there is clear inadequacy to capture small and medium scale enterprises most of which sit comfortably in the informal sector.

If the country improves its technical and vocational education system, there is still the lingering problem of an appropriate framework to track gains from less organised labour and sectoral system.

Support schemes such as the Bank of Industry scheme for youth entrepreneurs, the Central Bank fund for micro, small and medium scale enterprises, may yield better results if technical and vocational education is given more importance and made more relevant in the country. It could also provide means of capturing data of those within the informal sector, among other methods.

Clearly, investment in technical and vocational education will serve a multi-pronged purpose including expanding access to education, improving the economic output of the country by filling the skills gap that exists. It could also potentially spur on innovation, manufacturing etc. thus improving the Gross Domestic Product of the country and also its export capabilities.