NABTEB Registrar : Dr. Muhammed Aminu Muhammed, Deserves Commendation as TVET Enrollment Surges

 EDITORIAL


CampusDialog commends the Registrar of the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), Dr. Muhammed Aminu Muhammed, for driving policy reforms that are finally shifting Nigerian students toward Business and Technical Education.

The Evidence: Students Are Voting with Their Forms

This shift is exemplified by the monumental increase in student enrollment in the ongoing National Business Certificate (NBC) and National Technical Certificate (NTC) examinations. For the first time in years, technical colleges are seeing significant traffic. Parents who once viewed Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as a "second-class" option are rethinking their stance.

The Registrar rightly praised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for rolling out sustainable policies aimed at enhancing TVET. Today, parents and students alike are gradually embracing technical education over conventional grammar schools.


Why This Matters: The German and Chinese Models

The realization that skill acquisition through TVET is the key to national development is gaining widespread acceptance.

Germany, China, and most Asian countries heavily prioritize TVET to boost technological breakthroughs and development. Only a small percentage of their populations pursue general engineering courses and those who do study at elite institutions equipped with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities.

Nigeria needs to emulate these countries, whose companies are currently building our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, including electricity, telecommunications, and renewable energy networks. We import Chinese technicians to lay rails and German engineers to fix our power grid. Why? Because we trained lawyers while they trained builders.


CampusDialog's Position: Redirect the Traffic

CampusDialog joins in commending the President for paying closer attention to technical and vocational training and education. However, commendation without action is merely applause at a funeral. We must take the following steps:

  1. Fund the workshops: A technical college without tools is just a grammar school with "welding" written on the signboard.

  2. Pay TVET teachers well: The best technicians will not teach for ₦40,000 when Julius Berger pays ₦400,000.

  3. Link certificates to jobs: Every NBC/NTC holder should have an immediate apprenticeship pipeline. Having a skill without work is still unemployment.

  4. Tell the truth to parents: More students should be encouraged to attend technical colleges rather than conventional grammar schools. University is not the only gate to success; skill is.


Final Word: Build, Don’t Just Certify

Dr. Muhammed Aminu Muhammed has opened the gate. President Tinubu has pointed the direction. Now, Nigeria must walk the path.

A nation that cannot wire its own houses will forever borrow the men who can.


Ambrose Odiase, FIPMA, MANUPA, MAUA (UK)

Founding Editor/Publisher, CampusDialog.blogspot.com

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