The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa has commenced a major repositioning of Monotechnic and Technical Education including a curriculum review exercise, supported with ₦1 billion from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
Special Adviser to the Minister on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.
Attah said the Minister was repositioning the Monotechnic and Technical Education Board (MBTE) to transform it into a more effective agency capable of driving Nigeria’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
He added that the move was aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of MBTE to effectively discharge its mandate, particularly the supervision and coordination of polytechnics, monotechnics and other institutions within its purview, while ensuring that technical education responds more directly to the skills needs of the Nigerian economy.
The Minister disclosed that he had constituted a team working with KPMG to undertake a comprehensive assessment of MBTE and develop a functional organisational structure and operational framework that would strengthen the agency’s internal processes and enable it to deliver more effectively on its responsibilities.
He said the engagement with KPMG was informed by the need to ensure that MBTE is properly structured, both internally and operationally, to provide the leadership, supervision and coordination required to drive technical and vocational education across the country.
According to Alausa, the success of President Tinubu’s vision for technical and vocational education depends significantly on the effectiveness of the institutions responsible for implementing and supervising the system.
He stressed that MBTE must therefore be repositioned as a strong and fit-for-purpose agency capable of providing effective oversight of polytechnics, monotechnics and other technical institutions, while ensuring that they produce the practical skills required to support national development.
The Minister explained that KPMG’s engagement was designed to identify institutional gaps and provide recommendations on the restructuring of MBTE’s internal mechanisms, organisational structure and operational processes.
He said the findings and recommendations from the exercise would provide a clearer framework for the agency, aligning its structure and operations with its statutory responsibilities and the Federal Government’s broader reforms in technical and vocational education.
Alausa emphasised that the exercise was not merely an administrative restructuring, but a fundamental step towards repositioning MBTE to effectively drive the development of technical and vocational education and training in Nigeria.
He said the Ministry’s approach recognises that polytechnic education is fundamentally part of the broader TVET ecosystem and should therefore be managed and developed within a skills-focused framework.
“Everything about the polytechnic is technical and vocational education and training. It is all about skills. We are simply discussing skills,” the Minister said.
He explained that this understanding informed the ongoing review of polytechnic curricula and the development of National Occupational Standards designed to ensure that training is more closely aligned with practical skills, industry requirements and opportunities for employment and enterprise.
The curriculum review exercise, which was supported with ₦1 billion from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), produced 27 new National Occupational Standards and reviewed four existing standards, bringing the total to 31.
Alausa said the standards extend beyond tertiary-level training to establish a clearer skills pathway from artisan-level training through National Certificate, Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes.
He stressed that the ultimate purpose of the reform is to ensure that Nigerians undergoing technical education acquire practical competencies that can translate into employment, entrepreneurship and increased productivity.
Providing an industry perspective, Adewale Ajayi, Partner and Head of Tax, Regulatory and People Services at KPMG Africa and KPMG in Nigeria, said the firm’s assessment had highlighted both the challenges confronting Nigeria’s technical and vocational education system and the opportunities available if the system is properly structured and strengthened.
Ajayi said about 93 per cent of Nigeria’s workforce is engaged in informal employment, while approximately 12 per cent of young people are not in education, employment or technical training.
He, however, noted that Nigeria performs strongly in the employability of TVET graduates, with only Singapore ranking ahead of the country among the markets assessed, indicating the potential of TVET to produce graduates with skills relevant to labour-market demands.
He also called for greater attention to curriculum development, noting that more than 55 per cent of existing curricula assessed were outdated, including programmes in engineering, science, arts and design.
Ajayi identified funding constraints and the five-year curriculum review cycle as some of the factors contributing to the challenge, while highlighting the recent update of the agriculture curriculum as a positive development.
