The National Board for Technical Education has decried the inadequate funding of the polytechnics by the federal and state governments.
The technical education regulatory agency said the inadequate funding of the polytechnic is responsible for the lack of an adequate technical workforce in the country.
The North Central coordinator of NBTE, Dr. Musa Koko, stated this in his presentation at a workshop organised by the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State, tagged “2021-2024 Strategic Plan Critique Workshop.” in Offa.
Koko lamented that state governments are not providing funds for state-owned polytechnics’ infrastructural development, thereby making the expansion of technical programmes impossible in the institutions.
He called on the Federal Government to ensure that the polytechnics’ curriculum is tailored toward the nation’s industrial needs.
Earlier, the chairman of the 2021/2024 strategic planning committee, the Deputy Rector of the Polytechnic, Dr Augustine Adama, said the workshop aimed to ensure the inclusion of inputs from the relevant stakeholders in the final copy of the action plan.
He said the institution had successfully implemented its strategic plan for 2017-2019.
In her presentation, the Dean of Research and Innovation at the institution, Dr. Grace Korter, said that the institution’s strategic plan aims to increase the students’ population into some less populated programmes “when compared with some other programmes being offered by the institution.”
She said the strategic plan also aimed at changing gender imbalance between male and female students in the institution, which she said currently affects female students in some programmes.
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