NBTE, CoL partner to strengthen TVET training 

The National Board for Technical Education (NBE) has signed an agreement with the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) to support and strengthen Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) through the design and development of open educational resources courseware.

A statement by the NBTE Head of Media, Hajiya Fatima Abubakar, said the agreement is to facilitate blended learning across the Nigerian polytechnics and related institutions.

The statement said Commonwealth Learning, being the creation of the Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies, is targeted at improving the capacity of NBTE staff and lecturers in polytechnics.

It said the first meeting was held, Tuesday, virtually between the NBTE led by its Executive Secretary, Professor Idris Bugaje and Mr. Robert Okinda of CoL, to kick start the collaboration.

The collaboration between the agencies, the Board said, would facilitate blended learning across Nigerian polytechnics and related institutions.

To kick-start this project, the Board has set up a technical team to design and develop 13 Open Educational Resource courseware for Competency Based Training and Assessment (CBETA), using the Open, Distance and Flexible e-Learning (ODFeL) approaches.

In the project, 33 ICT support staff would be trained in moodle administration to provide technical and multimedia support to the course design, development, quality assurance and delivery teams.

NBTE said the institutions granted approval to run the ODFeL are expected to select 66 participants to design and develop the 13 OER courseware.

Furthermore, 99 lecturers would be trained as assessors, internal verifiers, and external verifiers of the 13 OER courseware, using ODL methods from ODFeL approved institutions.