Expert cautions against copying foreign skills acquisition modules
NAN-H-62
Skills
By Chijioke Okoronkwo
Abuja, March 1, 2017 (NAN) Mr Per Borjegren, Project Manager, Skills Initiative for Africa of German Cooperation, has advised countries against copying skill acquisition modules used in other countries.
Borjegren gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a two-day Stakeholders Meeting on Skills Initiative for Africa on Wednesday in Abuja.
The meeting was organised by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Nigeria and NEPAD Continental.
Borjegren said that every country needed to find out where it had problems and develop requisite skills to solve such problems.
He said that the solution to skill gap problem in Nigeria was to strengthen Public Private Partnership (PPP) so that the private sector could be actively involved.
“I do not think that any system of education or technical education can be really copied and pasted into another context.
“I do not think that we should copy and paste systems from another country.
“However, the key in the German vocational education system which has been very promising and successful is to have the private sector and employers in the driver’s seat in looking at the demands in the economy.
“What kind of skills were really in demand? Only the employers can identify that,’’ he said.
According to him, the employer, who will benefit from the trained students need to be highly engaged in the designing and delivering of programmes, and accessing the outcomes of skill development programmes.
The project manager said that governmental organisations and employers needed to come together to develop the kind of skill acquisition programme that their economy needed.
“With scarce resources, we need to use the money wisely in areas we can see employment and income opportunities and for that to happen PPP is essential,’’ he said.
NAN reports that Nigeria alongside Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon and South Africa were selected by the African Union Commission (AUC) as pilot countries for the skills initiative which would run for a 3-year period. (NAN)
CJ/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola