Technical / Vocational Education

In a world dominated by science & technology on the one hand, and economics & finance on the other, Nigeria has no choice but to put these subject areas first. These subjects should be taught more intensively than any others, starting in primary school. The industrial education and technical/vocational skills acquisition built into the senior secondary school must be given the closest attention and fullest funding.

The goal of colonial education was to produce clerks and genteel liberal arts and science graduates to assist the British in administering their empire and exploiting its natural resources, while our entire populace served as wholesale consumers of British manufactured goods. Unfortunately, colonial education has continued to hold sway in Nigeria half a century after independence.

Revamping and modernizing our educational system requires that we abandon that old colonial education and its servile philosophy. Instead, we must embrace a philosophy of doing for self: exploiting our resources for our own benefit; processing our own raw materials; manufacturing many or most of the goods we need in our daily living. In other words, we need a modern education whose products will enable Nigeria to do for itself what the industrialized nations of the world do for themselves.

The military and civilian administrations of the 1970s and 80s made half-hearted efforts to institute such a modern education anchored on science & technology and economics & finance. They established polytechnics/colleges of technology in the mid-70s, and the 6-3-3-4 primary/secondary school system in 1981 which included a technical/vocational track in senior secondary school.

But altogether, the space granted to industrial education and technical/vocational skills acquisition was too small and off-center.

The technical/vocational track of senior secondary school was starved of workshop space, equipment, and skilled instructors. And the polytechnics/colleges of technology were by official government policy relegated to second class, a position inferior to universities of the conventional academic grammar school type, thereby hobbling their students with a damnable inferiority complex.

Worst of all, government failed to encourage and enable the rise of agricultural and manufacturing industries in which the technical education acquired in school and polytechnic could be put to use.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the dream of “industrial take-off” did not materialize because it was merely a “dream,” not driven by “right actions” to make it happen.

Now we must start afresh. Industrial education and technical/vocational skills acquisition must become the centerpiece of Nigerian education. It is the gateway to national (near-) self-sufficiency through industrialization. It must entirely displace and replace British colonial academic grammar school education and occupy the huge central space. It must be accorded the highest national priority alongside security and jobs, and it must be funded accordingly.

Technical skills teachers need to be trained in their hundreds of thousands, and well paid. Classrooms and workshops need to be built and well equipped. And the youth need to be counselled and guided away from academic grammar school subjects into industrial and technical specialties.

(The old academic “grammar school” curricula, greatly modified and Afro-centered, will operate in much more limited space at both secondary and tertiary levels).

From the business point of view, a level playing field needs to be established, with equitable regulations carefully spelled out; and using all the inducements that governments normally have at their command, entrepreneurs need to be encouraged to establish productive industries of all sorts that will provide the young people a place to put their learning to work and earn a decent living.

More specifically, senior secondary school (SS4-6) should mostly be devoted to training in the sciences and technologies. A portion of the student body should be trained and prepared to join the workforce straight from secondary school as technicians, artisans and craftsmen (masons, electricians, plumbers, motor mechanics, electronics servicemen, etc.).

Another portion should be trained and prepared to go on to higher institutions, most of them to study the technologies (engineering, computers), medicine, nursing, medical lab technology, the physical & biological sciences, the economic sciences (economics, banking, finance, marketing, business management, etc.); fewer of them to study the liberal arts (languages, literature, fine arts, history, law, political science, theatre, sociology, media, etc.).

Sorting the student body into these two categories will obviously involve close observation by the teachers, along with evaluation of each student’s performance through theoretical and practical tests, to determine each student’s inclinations, preferences and aptitudes.

Those preparing to join the workforce will be trained in such specialties as: electrical wiring, plumbing, building & bricklaying, road construction, carpentry & cabinet making, upholstery, welding, automobile mechanics, blacksmithing, goldsmithing & jewelry making, locksmithing, iron bending, butchering, cooking, tailoring, decorating, painting, drafting, engraving, gardening & landscaping, glassmaking, pottery, piano tuning & repairing,  tiling, roofing, shipbuilding, shoemaking, graphics & sign writing, toolmaking, clockmaking, spinning, rug making, quilting—in short, the entire range of metal crafts, stone crafts, ceramics & glass crafts, fiber & textile crafts, flower crafts, needlework, leatherworks, wood & furniture crafts, the computer information & telecommunications technologies, engine construction & maintenance technologies, all the big and the small that keep the industrial state running.

For one thing, this should bring to an end the general complaint that these experts are insufficient in quantity as well as quality in Nigeria, compelling employers to rely heavily on migrant technical workers from our ECOWAS neighbours.

Onwuchekwa Jemie