‘Educational constraints hampering Nigeria’s advancement’

Lack of relevant and functional educational programmes in the country have been blamed for her inability to fully harness the abundant human and natural resources en route to attaining the desired industrial and technological development.

This was the submission of Professor of Industrial Technology at the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, Emmanuel Jose Ohize.

Ohize, the lecturer in the university’s 44th inaugural lecture speaking on the topic, “Industrial and Technology Education; The missing link to Industrial development, “ said that though the country’s endowment in human and natural resources outweigh by far, those of many industrialised countries, there has been an excessive and unhealthy dependence on these industrialised nations.

He further stated that due to lack of technology and industrial power, Nigeria has over the years, shipped her natural resources industrialised nations for processing, stressing that “in the area of manpower, Nigerians are known to occupy critical positions in industrial set-ups of the industrialised countries.”

He, therefore, argued that, “The missing link for Nigeria to fully harness her resources, both human and natural, is the lack of relevant and functional educational programmes”.

While commending the current emphasis by the government on Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET), Ohize maintained that the country has what it takes to make herself an industrial and technological giant.

He pointed at Japan, which faced the same predicament years ago and shut her boarders to imported products and today, “The result of that action is there for all to see.”

He, therefore, suggested the need for sustained political will on the part of government to nurture the culture of homegrown technology education, and well-funded and fully equipped technical vocational and training institutions to be strategically sited across the country.

Additionally, he recommended the re-introduction of the type of fully equipped and well-staffed technical colleges of the 1960s and 1970s, pointing out that, “All politically motivated TVET institutions that are invariably poorly equipped should be scrapped.”

He argued that no nation could rise industrially or technologically above the level of her industrial and technological education.

On that score, he suggested the need for “facility beef-up” in all technology-based tertiary institutions in the country, as well as sustained drive for the commercialisation of their technological inventions and products.