ABUJA – Mr Mike Offor, the Director, Technology and Science, Federal Ministry of Education, on Wednesday decried the dearth of technical teachers in the country.
Offor told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the shortage of the teachers had contributed to lack of technical manpower.
He said efforts should be made to boost technical education if the country would have to meet the target for being among the top 20 economies by 2020.
“There is serious dearth of technical teachers and those who are available are due for re-tooling and up-skilling, but that is not forthcoming because of paucity of funds.
“We are making concerted efforts to address this problem, and through the MDGs, we are able to organise capacity building training for some technical teachers.
“For Nigeria to move forward and achieve the 2020 target, it must build a strong technical manpower because all the industries depend on technicians to operate.
“Becoming a top economy by 2020 goes beyond statistical accolade; it has to be sustained and the only way to sustain it is to continue to develop technical knowledge,’’ he said.
Offor said he was not an advocate of building more technical colleges but an advocate of training more technical teachers.
According to him, when there are enough technical teachers on ground, then the issue of establishing more technical colleges will come up.
“You may build a school with state-of-the-art facilities but if you do not have teachers who can use such equipment, then it is a wasted effort,’’ Offor said.
He called for the award scholarship to those willing to go for technical teachers training. (NAN)
