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By Stephen Adeleye.
Kogi Government on Tuesday reiterated its commitment to strengthen technical and vocational education by creating the enabling environment for students to acquire the prerequisite skills.
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, gave the assurance at a meeting she held with the management and staff of College of Education (Technical), Kabba, Kabba/Bunu Local Government Area of the State.
“We are strengthening our technical institutions to train and produce competent teachers, who would be employed to teach our students in the State’s own Science schools and Technical colleges across the state.
“Kogi has 39 Science schools and four technical colleges, and government is making effort to ensure each local government has at least one science school. There is need for this technical institution to produce competent and qualify teachers for those schools.
“We will continue to give support to ensure our technical institutions produce competent graduates who are technically sound, We are committed to quality education,” Osikoya said.
The Commissioner added the state government was also encouraging giving of scholarships to the best performing students as a way of encouraging the students to be serious and more committed to their studies.
She reiterated the need for more collaborations with the relevant stakeholders on technical and vocational skills, such as: NABTEB, Polytechnic, Nigeria-Korea Vocational Institute, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, among others,
“For us to achieved these noble goals of the New Direction Government led by His Excellency, Gov. Yahaya Bello, we need the support of everybody including the parents, students, teachers, communities, individuals, groups, private sector, and other relevant stakeholders.
The commissioner, however, enjoined the school management to raise the standard of the school through the standardisation of entry qualification of minimum of five credits as criteria for students enrolment at the entry level.
She urged the school management to reduce the number of students being admitted yearly into the school to study non-science and non-technical courses, saying the Provost should scale up the numbers of students for admission into science and Technical courses.
According to her, the school must improve, and focus more on science and technical aspects, which is the purpose for its establishment. The strategy of government is to encourage and strengthen vocational and technical education,” she said.
She urged the school management to envision on how to generate revenue for the school using the technical and vocational skills at their disposals, arable land for agriculture and backed it up with action, saying the market was already available.
“The school is sitting on opportunities, and with what the governor is putting on the table that we should see practical skills in action. The school must be viable.
“The management should be thinking of turning around the opportunities available in this school to generate revenue that is capable of sustaining the school itself which is a big leap, and we must be committed to that goal,”Osikoya advised.
Earlier, Mrs Victoria Jagboro, the College Provost, thanked the commissioner for her visit to the school, saying she was overwhelmed because it was first-time a Government functionary would be visiting the school since she assumed office in 2017.
Jagboro also commended the State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, for her appointment and for recently donating a 32 Seater Leyland Bus to the school to aid students and staff transportation in and out of school.
The provost, however, appealed to the State Government through the commissioner to help solve their major challenges which includes: impress, staff promotion & welfare, perimeter fencing, library structure and access road to the school permanent site.
She added that there was urgent need for government to compel the contractors handling the projects at permanent site to go back to site, especially the Administrative block which was about 75 per cent completion.
Mrs Zainab Lawal, Kogi Coordinator, Teachers Registration Coucil of Nigeria (TRCN), urged the Provost to ensure that their students register with the council so as to ‘catch them young’, and get them Certified at early age as professional teacher.
“We must do everything possible to ensure that we get our students registered for early certification,” Lawal said
The College of Education (Technical), Kabba, which was established in 2010 and commenced academic activities in 2011 with four Schools and 12 Departments, now has 14 departments.
The schools are: Schools of Education, Sciences, Technical Education, and Vocational Education.
Virtually, all the courses have been accredited except Physical and Health Education due to inadequate required facilities. Business Education and Home Economics are yet to be accredited savage courses were newly introduced.
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