The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) have moved to reposition engineering and technology education in Nigeria.

The two organisations made the pledge at a technical meeting at the NBTE headquarters on Thursday in Kaduna.

The president of COREN, Abubakar Zubair, said that engineering practice and technology education should be repositioned at the level of polytechnics, monotechnics, technical colleges, and the informal sector.

Mr Zubair lamented that over the years, COREN identified many gaps due to a lack of synergy between it and the NBTE, which, if rekindled, would result in greater achievements and development in the engineering sector.

The president noted that the country’s about 126 technical colleges were not regulated, saying that they had virtually lost their quality and standards.

“Technical colleges feed into the monotechnics and polytechnics, where the end is almost dead in the colleges. The future of this country in the area of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is in jeopardy if we don’t sit down to address the gaps,” he said.

According to Mr Zubair, the informal sector is choked with millions of uncertified youths with the requisite competencies, skills, and proficiencies.

Therefore, he recalled that the NBTE had packaged the National Skills Qualification Framework, and COREN produced about 18 sector skills councils.

“COREN will eventually have to accept to register the trainees when they are certified. This workshop is very key to identify areas where we and the NBTE must work together and bring other relevant key partners like ITF, NABTEB, NUC, TetFund and other agencies and sectoral regulators in areas of engineering and technology,” he said.

The president said COREN would revive residency practice for engineering, which was packaged many years ago. He stressed that engineers and technologists are also professionals, where the issue of funding created a crisis on residency practice.

He, however, expressed optimism that the federal government’s agenda, which included human capital in areas of skills, competencies, and entrepreneurship, had given them the energy to advocate for the government to accept the one-year residency for various groups of the engineering cadre.

NBTE executive secretary Idris Bugaje decried Nigeria’s poor state of engineering in terms of productivity and industrialisation.

Mr Bugaje, however, blamed Nigeria for allowing basic infrastructure for industrialisation to collapse.

(NAN)