The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has commenced the training of Quality Assurance Assessors in the Northwest zone.

Declaring the five-day training workshop open on Monday in Kano, the NBTE Executive Secretary, Prof. Idris Bugaje, said that the training was supported by the World Bank under the “Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS)“ project.

Bugaje, represented by his Special Adviser, Alhaji Ibrahim Bello, explained that the World Bank was supporting the Federal Ministry of Education and some selected states to promote technical and vocational education in the country.

He said the project was geared towards enhancing the quality and relevance of skills in the country, noting that the IDEAS project was in six states across the federation.

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The NBTE boss disclosed that the project was meant to intervene in the development of the technical colleges and skills sector in Nigeria.

He described the initiative as vital for the growth of the Nigerian economy.

Bugaje expressed regrets that over the years technical colleges were not functioning as expected.

He said this made the World Bank to provide a $200 million loan for the Federal government to reposition technical colleges in some selected states in order to close the skill gaps in the country.

Bugaje, who lamented the shortage of quality assurance assessors in the country, noted that the participants would be trained with a view for them to be able to train youths in skill acquisition.

“The number of quality assurance assessors is not more than 1,500 in a country of 200 million people and that is why the Federal Government is partnering with IDEAS to close the gap,” he said.

The Project Manager of IDEAS, Abbati Muhammad, said that the World Bank was supporting the IDEAS project in each of the participating state with $200 million credit facility for its smooth implementation.

According to him, the project has four components with the core objective of enhancing the capacity of the Nigerian skills development system to produce relevant skills for the formal and informal sectors.

He explained that the training would enhance their capacity to effectively carry out their assigned activities across all the four project components of the scheme.

Muhammad explained that some of the challenges in the sector could be surmounted through the National Skill Qualification Framework developed to achieve the occupational standardisation.

Earlier, the commissioner for Education, Ya’u Yanshana, said that Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje launched the project ‘Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills“ recently.

According to him, the implementation of the project signifies the seriousness and commitment of those managing the IDEAS project.

He commended the NBTE for its concerted efforts to see that much was achieve within the life span of the project.

Represented by the Executive Secretary, Science and Technology Schools Board, Ahmed Abdullahi, noted that advent of knowledge economy and educational competences were prized above natural resources as the prime factor in national development.

“The combination of science, technology and mathematics education is acknowledged as the pivot of economic and industrial development, with its sub-sector, Technical, Vocational Education and training (TVET) as the pillars of the economy.

“A country’s standing in science and technology and in TVET defines her stand in the ladder of the world economies.

“Success stories of the newly industrialising countries (NICs) such as as Korea, China and Malaysia attest to the fact that the systematic application of scientific and technological knowledge is a major actor to leapfrog into sustainable economic development, ” he said.

He urged the participants to make good use of the knowledge they had acquired for the overall development of the state and the country at large.

Some of the participants, who spoke to our correspondent commended the organisers and promised to share the knowledge with others.