Lorine Emenike
Associate Professor and Head of the department of vocational and technical education at Ignatius Ajuru University, Isaac Ogundu has said that a state of emergency should be declared on vocational and technical education, especially in Rivers State.
Ogundu said the first step is to constitute a board on vocational and technical education and let each local government area in the state have vocational college.
He spoke at the 4th annual conference of the faculty of vocational and technical education with the theme ” Promoting Innovation and Research Towards Curbing insecurity Through Vocational Skills Acquisition for Sustainable Development in Nigeria”.
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The event which was held at the school of postgraduate study’s auditorium had in attendance, the vice-chancellor of the university, who was represented by the head of St. Johns campus, Dr Levy Kalabor.
Prof. Ogundu said the theme for this year’s conference was motivated to curb crime and insecurity in society.
He said: “In this conference, we are addressing insecurity and the need to employ people immersively. We think that employability will be enhanced through skill development or acquisition.
“The more people are skilled, the more they are likely to be employed. And we are advocating that there should be a state of emergency declared on vocational and technical education in the state, and a board of technical education can be constituted, making each LGA have one vocational college where people can be trained in a sustainable manner rather than ad-hoc.”
“So if we begin to engage the youths through massive skill development, even pay taxes to the government, they are likely going to be useful to themselves and the society, and they will turn around to be employers of labour, rather than being killed or killing others.”
Prof. Ogundu said that vocational education encompasses agriculture, home economics, computer education, technical education, building, mechanical and automobile, electrical and electronics and business education.
He said that with the enhancement and establishment of a vocational college in LGAs in the state, people’s skill would be developed and current competencies will be acquired.
In his keynote lecture, Prof. Paulinus Okwelle said, “that there is the need to foster entrepreneur skills because entrepreneurship is the key to vocational education.”
He stressed that there is a need to identify new skills for jobs of today, adding that as a teacher, there is a need to develop new training resources for the new skills.
He also stressed the need to form new synergistic ties between vocational training institutions and industries.”
“Insecurity to life and properties in Nigeria is a significant concern to all; the greatest challenge to the security in Nigeria is abject poverty. Judging from the current development in Nigeria, the unemployment and poverty rate may escalate, there is a need to promote a way of curbing insecurity in Nigeria”, he said.
