The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the registration and certification of the Shell Graduate Programme (SGP) and Shell Advanced Technical Programme (SATP) graduates.
The COREN’s Public Relations Officer, Ms Ocheh Faith, in a statement sent to Blueprint online on Friday, said under the agreement, the council hopes to build its capacity to regulate the competency standards and skill acquisition in the Oil and Gas sector.
The COREN’s spokesperson said: “The harnessing of engineering practitioners’ skills will facilitate and create new job areas like integrity tests for Engineering infrastructure and help to mitigate engineering failures”.
To achieve this, the statement stated: “In accomplishing this, COREN commits to set up an internal structure/committee drawn from industry practitioners to supervise the process of building institutional capacity to manage the registration and certification programmes”.
The statement also quoted the COREN’s Registrar, Professor Joseph O. Odigure, as saying that the council as regulatory body was ready to liaise with and cooperate with all relevant organizations in Nigeria to improve engineering education.
He said: “We cannot act effectively today, if we do not develop an all-inclusive platform of engaging all stakeholders to build consensus in regulation. This is the prerequisite for market-driven engineering education, for job creation and sustainably in competencies growth”.
Odigure said there was no alternative to guaranteeing the health and safety of the nation’s infrastructure.
“What we are doing today is very important particularly knowing that SPDC contributes substantially to the economic wealth of our nation. Ignoring their methodologies and techniques of training Engineers and the possibility of post-employment of those involved in these trainings, is a big disservice to our Nation.
” We are beginning a process that will enhance considerably the engagement of staff of SPDC during and after their service. We are committed to implementing the structure agreed upon”
Also speaking, the General Manager, Nigeria COG Projects SPDC Nigeria, Mr Toyin Olagunju who was represented by the company’s General Manager, Business and Government Relations, Engr. Bashir Bello, said
the MoU with COREN was an opportunity to expose young Nigerian Engineers.
He said: “We as a company are even double-excited that we have achieved this milestone today. SPDC as an oil and gas company, is deeply involved in human capacity development.
“We pride ourselves in capacity building. So, when we had this opportunity to structure some of our internal programmes for the development of Engineers through our SGP & SATP in a way that it will receive COREN recognition and certification, we made the most of it.
“We will consider other areas beyond the SGP and SATP, to support COREN and the nation in general, to facilitate human capacity development in the engineering profession as there is hardly any branch of engineering that we do not get involved in. We truly believe that this is an opportunity to expose young Nigerian Engineers.”
