International Journal of Research and Development Studies Volume 8, Number 1, 2017
ISSN: 2056 – 2121
© 2017 McEvans Publishing Company
RE-BRANDING OF VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION (V.T.E.) CURRICULUM FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE AND HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY
*Mohammed Umaru, Usman Musa and Saidu Ali Dawa
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Dept. of Computer Science, Department of Physics,
Federal Polytechnic, Damaturu, Yobe State, Nigeria, Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri,
Umar Ibn Ibrahim College of Science and Tech., Bama, Borno State, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
This work tries to examine the development of vocational and technical education during the last six decades. The problems experienced as a result of unconsolidated reforms includes: the VTE curriculum, the instructional materials and the skills taught are not inconsonance with the present day technological advancement. Recommendations made for the way forward includes: replacement of the obsolete laboratory/workshop equipment with the modern laboratory/workshop facilities, the resources being wasted in the ongoing false rebranding should have been used to rebrand teachers of V.T.E. of the recent developments in global technological advancements.
INTRODUCTION
As the day turns to night so do new technological devices become old ones? This rapidity in technology development has created difficulty for technology education curriculum planners in content selection. Where skills that are in demand today can become obsolete overnight as a result of globalization and its attendant rapid technological transformation across occupational areas and the opening of economies to competition. Large numbers of skilled workers are dislocated, as their skills become obsolete. As societies cannot remain stagnant, vocational and technical education researchers and other stakeholders such as National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), National University Commission (NUC) and International Organizations like ILO, UNESCO, World Bank, etc. are faced with the onerous task of coping with this unavoidable and continue changes. This can only be achieved when vocational and a technical education curriculum is rebranded in consonance with the present trend.
Concept of Vocational and Technical Education
Vocational and technical education has been an integral part of national development strategies in many nations because of its impact on productivity and economic development. The vital role it plays in the production of skilled and competent manpower for economics industrial and social development cannot be achieved as the leaders of Nigeria have not given this aspect of education the attention it deserves. And this has attributed to the nation’s underdevelopment. This article therefore focuses on re-branding of vocational and technical education (V.T.E) for better performance and higher productivity. Victor (2005) defined technical education as a planned programme of courses and learning experiences that begins with exploration of career options supports basic academic and life skills, and enables achievement of high academic standards, leadership, preparation for industry –defined work, and advanced and continuing education. While career and technical education (2005) posits that vocational education and training prepares learners for careers that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic and totally related to a specific trade, occupation or vocation. In other words, vocational and technical education gives individuals the skills to live, learn and work as a productive citizens in a global society (Wikipedia, 2005). This type of education has the economic role of providing qualified manpower demanded by changing the individual and in enabling him to use complex technology.
International Journal of Research and Development Studies Volume 8, Number 1, 2017
To achieve the national objectives, and the objectives of vocational and technical education in Nigeria, the emphasis therefore, should not only be on the provision of skilled manpower for a static economy but also continuing to so far a dynamic one, especially with changing societal needs for technological advancement. This is very necessary because most people who pass through training in this type of education are unable to perform adequately as they ought to, unemployment has become so rampant, and poverty has engulf most of them.
Historical Perspectives of Vocational and Technical Education
Makoju (2009) observed that Nigeria has experienced at least six decades of unconsolidated reforms in vocational and technical education retrospectively from the trade centre of the nineteen forties and fifties and as well as craft schools and technical institutes right from the colonial days to Basic Apprenticeship Training Centre (BATCs). Technical colleges, colleges of science and technology and polytechnics of the nineteen sixties/seventies and the colleges of education (technical) of the seventies and eighties as well as the Federal Technical Colleges, Federal Colleges of Education (Technical) and Universities of Technology of the nineteen eighties to date.
In order to assess the level of development of the programme under review, Makoju (2009) asked the following nagging questions: what has the nation achieved from this outline of Vocational Technical Education over the past sixty years? Why has Nigeria not by now become economically and industrially self-propelled and still has to be dependent on imported artifacts, skills, manufactured goods, drugs and foreign expatriates to construct our highways? Why massive unemployment nationwide? Are our products of vocational/technical/technology education not skilled enough to be functional, self employable or other employed? If the answers to questions are otherwise then it became evident that vocational and technical education in Nigeria needs re-branding.
Challenges of Vocational and Technical Education in Nigeria
Vocational and technical education (V.T.E) involves the use of our hands to learn and acquire some skills; these could be skills to do a variety of things, for example, to repair a broken chair, radio or even a car, or even to make things. This involves the use of our hands and the burning of energy. These skills provide us with necessary knowledge. You may not be able to fix a car or radio at first attempt but regular practice will lead to success (practice made perfect). Skills and knowledge lead to attitudinal changes, the desire to learn more, to produce better products and to be useful to oneself instead of relying on some other people and so on (John, 2010).
Vocational and technical education can be formal or informal in nature. An important ingredient of V.T.E. is that it enables the learner to start from the scratch and to become competent. Some advantages of V.T.E. include: it can be integrated into the formal education system and the traditional system; it nature’s skills that enable the recipients to be self-employed as well as to enter into the formal job market; it as well provides the basis for an entrepreneurial culture and gives people the chance to overcome poverty and to contribute to the economic and technological development of their communities and country.
John (2010) opined that the colonial impact in Nigeria, more or less destroyed the system of V.T.E. that had successfully served local communities over the centuries. The British system produced what has been termed armed chair theoreticians’ and white collar workers’. After independence this was found not to be serving the needs of the country well, with its burgeoning population, high illiteracy rates and pervasive poverty. This has necessitated a rethink of its education policies and programmes, and especially after the oil burst of the late 1970s. Similarly, this has ushered in the New National Policy on Education (1981), i.e. the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 system of education, the establishment of Technical Secondary Schools, Colleges of Education (Technical) and Universities of Technology, etc. Federal Government also introduced many poverty eradication programmes such as NDE, NAPEP and YES, etc. Tertiary institutions have also embrace V.T.E. in their curricular and training, as students in Engineering, Science Laboratory Technology, Business Management, Environmental Science, etc. are required to undergo some industrial based experience during the training. Universities under-graduates are part of this
Re-Branding of Vocational and Technical Education Mohammed U., Usman M. and Saidu Ali D.
(V.T.E.) Curriculum for Better Performance and
Higher Productivity
training. The Industrial Training Fund (I.T.F) was created purposely for this reason. More recently, tertiary institutions have started training of students in entrepreneurial skills to enable them develop entrepreneurial culture so that they could set up their own business and be able to manage them.
In view of the aforementioned developments in V.T.E., UN report in John (2010) posits that serious problems however remain, which include the quality education, inadequacy of classrooms, poor teaching facilities, poorly trained and unqualified teachers and poor motivation.
The objectives of V.T.E. as enshrined in the New Policy on education in Nigeria are:
The present V.T.E. curriculum, the instructional materials, the type of training and skills taught are not in consonance with the present day technological advancement. This clearly shows that the design of Nigeria’s V.T.E. curriculum is flawed. The only way to get out of this problem is to call for rebranding of the V.T.E. curriculum.
Rebranding of V.T.E. Curriculum for Higher Productivity
While Vocational and Technical Education has continued to thrive in many countries, Nigeria has neglected this aspect of education. Consequently, it lacks skilled technicians: bricklayers, carpenters, painters and auto-mechanics, electrical/electronic technicians and skilled vocational nurses, etc. This turn our hospitals to become no longer a place where people go to get their ailments treated, but a place they go and die. And the half-baked roadside mechanics in the society cause more harm to vehicles when contracted to service them. Similarly, because of poor training some of the commercial drivers are busy sending people early to their graves. The quack performance of our mason/bricklayers is no longer news given the rate at which buildings collapsed in our cities. For that individuals with important projects now use competent technicians from abroad. Nigerians epileptic electricity supply as a result of poorly trained technicians is the greatest bottleneck to national development. Infact, every faced of the economy has been affected by lack of skilled technicians. Battling all day in the farm with hoes, shovels and knives would not feed the nations over one hundred and forty million people. The financial sector lacks technicians to regulate the banks and to develop financial software to properly tackle the rising fraudulent activities in the banking sector.
All the aforementioned setbacks are not unconnected to what Olaitain et. al. (1991) had observed that it should be known that what is faulty in our education system, is not the idea of specialization but lack of depth with which the subjects are usually presented and the absence of the specialized knowledge and skills. What students should learn in Vocational and Technical Education are those which must help them become in works needed by their society. Furthermore, in identifying the inadequacies of the V.T.E. system, Olawepo (2000) opined that when vocational students are trained on outdated equipment, it is not surprising that they arrive in the workplace with inadequate and outdated skills. In the same vain, Okorie (2001) observed that curriculum and instructional materials are not developed for new occupations and generally emphasis seems to be on obsolete and declining skill.
The observations made by the above scholars clearly show that the design of Nigeria’s V.T.E. system is flawed. The only way to get out of this problem is to call for rebranding of the V.T.E. curricula.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It cannot be overemphasized that vocational and technical education is the engine for a nation’s economic growth. No nation would make any meaningful socioeconomic stride without well-
International Journal of Research and Development Studies Volume 8, Number 1, 2017
articulated V.T.E. programme. In the same token Nigeria cannot develop without well-equipped vocational and technical institutions. In today’s knowledge derived technological development which entails both occupational and instructional reorientation, rebranding of vocational and technical education curricula becomes indispensable.
Nigeria can tackle its developmental challenges and realize its visions only if proper attention is given to the following:
CONCLUSION
In view of the sorry state of the nation’s vocational and technical education institutions, many of the graduate lack employability skills, this would easily be acquired from technical and vocational colleges. The neglect of V.T.E. is economically and socially injurious because it is rubbing the nation the contributions the graduates would make on national development. To this end, government and all stake holders should take up the issue of V.T.E. very seriously in order to revitalize the sector.
REFERENCES
Career and Technical Education: Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction: online –http://www.k12.wa.us/careerTechEd.
Federal Republic of Nigeria. (2004) National Policy on Education, Yaba –Lagos NERDC Press.
John, Y. O. (2010). “Vocational/Technical Education and the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria: An overview” –Journal of Vocational and Technical Education (JOVTED), Vol. 2 No. 2.
Makoju, E. I. (2009). “An Address by Chairman NAVTED/Conference Highlight on Vocational and Technical Education”. Journal of Vocational and Technical Education (JOVTED), Vol. 2 No. 1.
Okorie, J. U. (2001). “Vocational Industrial Education”. League of Researchers in Nigeria, Bauchi State.
Olaitan, S. O. and Onyemachi, G. and Nwachukwu, C. E., Igbo, C. A. and Ekong, A. O. (1999). Curriculum Development in Vocational and Technical Education. Cape Publishers International Ltd. Awada Onitsha.
Olawepo, O. (1999). “The Challenges and Implication of Appropriate Technology for Educators in Nigeria Beyond the year 2000”. Journal of Technical Education, Vol. 2 No. 1, Gombe State.
Victor, E. O. (2004). “Vocation Education: Missing Link in Nigeria’s Development Policy”; online: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles.
Vocational Education: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/vocational_education; online –www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/policy_issues_reviews/key_issues/nts/glo/utoz.htm.