Kogi state Tuesday sought for adequate support from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to enable it to provide quality technical and vocational education for students.
The state’s Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, made the call when a team from the NBTE, Kaduna, led by Mr Samaila Tanko, visited her Tuesday in Lokoja, according to kogirport.
The NBTE supervises, regulates and oversee technical educational programmes and institutions at secondary, polytechnic and monotechnic levels in the country.
Osikoya said the state needed technical and advisory support from the board in terms of accreditation of programmes in its technical colleges, which their accreditations expired since 2002.
The commissioner stressed the dire need to focus more attention on vocational and technical education as a way of curbing the menace of high number of out-of-school children in the state.
“The state government has reclassified 17 other schools to be upgraded to technical colleges in addition to the existing four, to enable each local government area have one technical college.
“The support of the NBTE will be highly needed in that direction, especially in the area of accreditation and other technical assistance.’’
Osikoya thanked the federal government for giving approval for the establishment of a federal technical college in Kogi, saying it was the first of its kind.
She said a team from Federal Ministry of Education, earlier this month, visited the proposed site for Federal Government Technical College, Ogugu, Olamaboro local government area, for assessment.
She said that hitherto, Kogi was abandoned for decades with no external support from both the federal government and development partners, but now Yahaya Bello’s administration in education were yielding tangible results.
The commissioner commended the governor for making the education sector the topmost priority of his administration.
