The rain was drizzling that Thursday in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, but as people scampered for cover to escape the wetness on Akilo Road, Off Oba Akran Avenue, Victor Igho and a customer were tearing at each other’s clothes as they fought in the rain.

Igho, one of the many technicians in the auto part market at Akilo, repairs vehicle stereos. The customer with whom he was locked in the scuffle, had brought the stereo of his Toyota Camry to him for repairs a day earlier.

“I was told he was the best around here. My stereo no longer played discs but I was still getting radio channels on it. He billed me N5,000 and I did not argue. I paid and expected to get the stereo back today. But I got here and he told me the stereo was irreparable. To worsen the situation, he has compounded its problem because the channels no longer work and he has refused to refund my money,” the angry customer said.

Igho, a practising technician of six years, got a slap from this customer and decided not to take another one. But the matter was soon settled.

Fighting between unsatisfied customers and technicians is fairly common in the area, our correspondent learnt.

Our correspondent later learnt that Igho was a graduate of one of the many technical colleges in the south-eastern part of the country.

Igho is just one of many Nigerian technicians whose expertise has become outdated.

Mr. Mayowa Oladiran, a Lagos State civil servant, paid N120,000 for a set of furniture in January 2014. But by the time he took delivery of the settees, he got so mad about the terrible job done by his furniture maker that he had to report the matter to the police.

“I went as far as searching online for the kind of design I wanted. I printed the design out and asked my furniture maker to produce exactly the same design. By the time he was done, apart from the fact that there was no resemblance between what he did and what I gave him, the chairs were so terrible. I was very angry that I had to report him to the police,” he said.

The increasing dearth of competent technicians in different fields in the light of the advancement in technology, is becoming a worrisome issue, Saturday PUNCH learnt.

Investigation into this worrisome trend pointed in the direction of the technical schools in the country.

Within three weeks, our correspondent visited four technical colleges across the South-West, a journey that would reveal decay and neglect which seems to suggest the ‘death’ of technical schools in the country.

Technical and vocational education was incorporated into the Nigerian education sector as a national development strategy. The number of technical colleges in the country currently stands at 187. But as many as they are, Nigeria continues to suffer deteriorating scarcity in skilled workers.

Mr. Victor Dike, an advocate of a strong technical education in Nigeria, said many of the countries of the world making advancement technologically have a strong technical and vocational educational sub-sector.

“India and the ‘Asia Tigers’ (China, South Korea etc) could not have become what they are without massive investment in technical education. But as it has continued to thrive in many societies, Nigeria has neglected this aspect of education,” Dike said.

Neglect would turn out to be an understatement in describing the situation in some of the technical colleges visited.

‘Mungo Park’ equipment

The Ekiti State-owned Government Technical College in Ado-Ekiti bears every resemblance of an old institution that probably has produced many great men and women. But everything that makes it a real technical college is gone.

The school’s principal described the obsolete facilities in the institution as “Mungo Park” equipment.

The hall that was supposed to serve as the college’s furniture making department has become a store for obsolete equipment.

Practical work is done on a blackboard on which various diagrams of other machines that bear little resemblance to the real ones are scrawled.

Our correspondent learnt that the disused equipment in the department were supplied in 1964 when the school was established.

“This school was established in 1964 and the equipment supplied at that time are what we still have in the school. Of course, they no longer work but we simply describe how they work and hope our students would know how to operate them when they see the real ones,” a teacher said.

The drilling and lathe machines in the hall were all caked with dusts and rusts, showing that they had not worked for many years.

If furniture students had obsolete and disused machines to learn with, the ones in the mechanical department are not so lucky. Their situation is more pathetic.

‘We go to roadside mechanics to learn after graduation’

The mechanical department has no single equipment. Again, teachers make do with diagrams and explanation to perform the magic of practical work here.

Students would later explain how things work.

“If any one of us is interested in becoming a real furniture maker or mechanic, what we do is we go to workshops in town to learn the practical work after we graduate. I want to be a mechanic when I graduate and I already know the (roadside) mechanic I will go and learn from,” a student, Isola Adeoye, told our correspondent.

Another student told our correspondent that though his brother graduated from the technical college a few years ago, he is still an apprentice with a roadside mechanic.

The college has become the backwater of education in the town, a senior teacher, who did not want to be named, lamented.

She said, “Parents even look down on other parents who send their children here. It makes me sad that after training, our students still go to roadside workshops to learn the practical aspect of what they have learnt in class simply because government does not fund technical schools.

“Sometimes, we don’t even have electricity supply for months. Even if we have equipment, how do we operate them in that kind of situation? I am a product of a technical school. When I was in school and when I just became a teacher, we did more of practical teaching. Now most of what we do is theoretical.”

We teach in abstract – Teachers

At the Government Technical College, Owo in Ondo State, which was established in 1963, about 1,000 students spread across 12 departments contend with a similar appalling infrastructure deficit until MTN Foundation chose it as one of four technical colleges across the country to benefit from supply of machines.

One would have thought the school is out of the woods with the telecommunication outfit’s assistance, but situation on ground is very far from ideal.

Our correspondent visited a large hall used by the woodwork and furniture making department. But alas, half of the hall is a jumble of obsolete and disused equipment that years ago had turned many to skilled furniture makers. Like the college at Ekiti, most of the facilities were supplied at the school’s inception in the 60s.

Again, the students only have to ‘imagine’ how these machines work but not ‘see’ them work. Some of the students simply stretched out to take a nap in the workshop in the absence of practical work when our correspondent visited.

Machines supplied by the telecommunication company are sophisticated but the students rarely have opportunity to see them work. Some of the new shearing and modern folding machines supplied to the workshops are electrically powered.

“We rarely have power supply. The school cannot afford to run on generator and we don’t have power for weeks. MTN gave us a generator, but we operate it once in a while when our school can afford to buy fuel. How do we teach our pupils with the machines? We teach in abstract now,” a teacher, Mr. Adeoti Aderotimi, said.

“We do 90 per cent theoretical teaching and 10 per cent practicals now,” he explained.

When our correspondent got to the mechanical workshop at the college, a teacher was seen working on his personal car.

“I had to send my students to my house to get me my tools just to do a routine work on my car in this workshop. There are no equipment here. So, you can imagine how I teach them,” he said.

Head of Department of Furniture Craft, Mr. Ojo Samuel, lamented that apart from the donated equipment, they contend with teaching their students with equipment that are no longer in use in modern day furniture making.

Learning mechanical work with 40-year-old car

What Samuel explained would later present itself in more clear terms when our correspondent visited the Government Technical College in Ikorodu, Lagos which by far is one of the best out of the colleges visited by our correspondent on account of the well-maintained school environment and working equipment.

But in the workshop of the college’s mechanical department, our correspondent noticed a striking spectacle – a 1970s Volkswagen on which the pupils learn motoring and mechanics. There is no doubt that modern day vehicles are so far ahead of the level of technology the students are learning in that car.

Goddey Igbana, a mechanic at the Mechanic Village, Agidingbi, Lagos explained what working on modern-day vehicles entails.

“People take their vehicles to companies for servicing now because many of our colleagues add to the problems of vehicles when the owners bring them for repairs. It is not our fault, the technology in the vehicles are becoming sophisticated every day. Many of us learnt with old vehicles,” he said.

Students who make do with learning furniture making with rudimentary or obsolete tools in Nigeria’s technical colleges graduate to compete with foreign’ furniture making factories where sophisticated and automated system equipment are used.

The same deficit affects the construction sub-sector.

During a visit to the Government Technical College, Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State, the same sorry state of infrastructure was the order of the day.

All talk but no funding

In the 2014 Budget, development of business and technical education is allocated the sum of N1.25bn. But the National Board for Technical Education alone gets N1.4bn.

While a needs assessment earned the 21 federal science and technical colleges in the country the sum of N3.2m, an action research on technical and vocational education and training gets N1.5m. But after all these, Nigeria continues to record a deficit in technical skills.

At the state level, things have gone beyond worse. Administrators of the technical colleges lament that government continues to clamour for entrepreneurship but looks away when it is time to adequately fund technical education.

Nigerians seek artisans abroad

Things have become very frightening as far as the informal sector is concerned. Despite talks about strengthening this sector, technical jobs are being cornered by more skilled foreigners.

“People now go to Ghana, even Togo to get artisans to build their houses. That’s how bad things have become. Before, to repair anything like television, refrigerator, or any other household appliance, people preferred to come to technical colleges but the system has crumbled. We rarely get funding anymore, let alone new facilities,” one principal told Saturday PUNCH.

A building engineer, Mr. Victor Olusegun, confirmed this assertion. In September 2013, Olusegun who has handled many multi-million naira construction contracts in Ibadan, Oyo State, needed to lay the floor and wall tiles of a building construction he was handling at the time. He travelled to Benin Republic and ‘shipped in’ the technicians who handled the job.

“That is where you can get experts who would do a perfect job as far as tiling is concerned. The people who gave me contracts don’t want to know where I get the manpower for the job, they just want the job done well,” he said.

Earlier this year, during a meeting with the German Ambassador to Nigeria, Dorothee Janetzke-Wenzkel, Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, echoed what Nigerians have always heard – need to strengthen the informal sector and the economy through vocational development.

“Germany is partnering Nigeria on vocational training in order to boost industrial skills acquisition and bridge the skills gap of Nigeria. Most times people don’t get the jobs because they lack the skills even when the jobs are there,” Janetzke-Wenzkel said.

Principal of the technical college at Owo, Mrs. Grace Oloruntoba, believes that Nigeria would come back to develop technical education when its leaders realise that the economy is going nowhere without correcting the technical skills deficit.

“It is unheard of that most of what we do as technical colleges is now theoretical. What are we doing if we don’t have working machines? Ours is the soul of Nigeria’s economy but it seems our leaders have simply forgotten that,” she said.

Nigeria joking about development without vocations – Don

The Ogun State Government seems to have realised the danger sign that lies ahead because of its hitherto poor technical and vocational education.

During a stakeholders’ forum held in the state capital, Abeokuta, recently, which our correspondent attended, a contributor lamented how mechanical students are taught in the colleges with rudimentary facilities “when the world has moved from just mechanics to mechatronics.”

Speaking with our correspondent at the event, Professor of Food Technology and Engineering at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Segun Awonorin, who is a product of a technical college, explained that Nigeria cannot simply side-step technical education in its quest to diversify and grow the economy.

He said, “Our economy is going nowhere without the rejuvenation of this sub-sector. Past leaders and military rulers destroyed the technical education because they thought it was simply better to pour the money meant for technical schools in their own pockets.

“Many of the equipment you see that are moribund in the technical colleges were supplied without consultation with the schools administrators about what they needed. Many of them could not be used because of the limited expertise in the areas in which the facilities are useful.”

Governments’ response

The Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Technical Vocational Education Board, Mr. Olawunmi Gasper, said the state is actually aware of the deficit that needs to be plugged in the informal sector.

He said, “Of the 170 million Nigerians, only a tiny fraction earn a living from the informal sector, which is why there is a need to make technical education attractive in the country.

“We have infused entrepreneurship into our curriculum to combat the problem of unemployment in Lagos. But to improve technical education, there is need for adequate funding and development partners.”

Chairperson of the Ogun State Technical and Vocational Education Board, which was set up in 2013, Mrs. Doyin Ogunbiyi, said the state government had begun a process of rejuvenating technical colleges in the state.

Ogunbiyi said the state was aware of the poor state of infrastructure in the technical schools, for which she said “N1bn would be needed for outright overhaul.”

Ekiti State Commissioner for Education, Mr. Kehinde Ojo, told our correspondent that the state government would kick-start a programme on the renovation of technical colleges in the state in July.

He said, “By September or October, it is our assurance that the colleges would take a new shape. Apart from this, there is a World Bank grant being pursued for this purpose.

“There is no doubt that every year, the schools would receive attention as a result of the World Bank fund and this would be sustained, if the fund is managed well, for the next three to four years.”


Source: The Punch

URGENT VACANCY
FACILITIES ASSISTANT (PLUMBING)
HealthPlus Limited is Nigeria's 1st Integrative Pharmacy, the fastest growing pharmacy chain in West Africa. Since 1999, we have been committed to our mission of helping people achieve optimum health & vitality. In 2010, a sister company was birthed - CasaBella International Limited. CasaBella, a one-stop store for beauty and grooming solutions is now a retail chain and a household name.
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Job Description
The Facilities Assistant will perform skilled plumbing work in the maintenance, repair, and installation of water lines, water pumps; and performs related duties as required.

Key Elements of the Role
• Report to the Facilities Manager
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• Install and repair broken pipes, plumbing fittings, and fixtures
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• Maintain and repair water supply pipes, tests completed work and makes necessary
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• Desired Skills & Experience
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• Ability to prepare rough sketches of work and estimates of materials and labor
• Ability to speak and write clearly
• Ability to work cooperatively with others
• Good Negotiation and persuasion skills
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