Capacity Building Imperatives for Developing Science, Technical and Vocational Education for a Future World of Work

Abstract

The Nigeria’s educational system during the colonial era was literal in nature and defective. Notable among the defects was lack of practical skills which the government failed to introduce in the various school subjects of the curriculum. The wilful or unwilful exclusion of practical skills from the curriculum by the colonial administrators gave rise to youth unemployment, rural/urban migration by youths in search of white-collar jobs, and lack of productive skills for self-employment among graduates. The educational system at that time could not solve the mounting national problem. This was the major purpose why the National Policy on Education was launched in 1977 with great emphasis on Vocational and Technical education and selfreliance. The new curriculum arising from the National Policy on Education, though focused on vocationalization, has not succeeded mainly because of implementation problems. The author of this paper therefore, advocates that for developing science, technical and vocational education for a future world of work, teaching and learning in our various levels of education should include: appropriate teaching strategies entrepreneurship education, employment and training of qualified teachers, provision of adequate facilities among others.

Keywords: Vocationalization, Entrepreneurship, Instructional media, Job related skills, Manual dexterity, Concept formation.