By Emmanuel Onwusoro
Manipulative and vocational skills acquisition by polytechnic students have been underscored as veritable ways through which the growing unemployment in Nigeria can be reduced.
The Rector, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Dr Temitope Alake advanced this while addressing the media after a facility visit of completed and on-going projects in the institution.
He said the visit and acquainting journalists with the state of affairs became necessary for the world to know how far the journey had been since one year after he assumed the leadership of the school.
Dr Alake remarks that the school has been performing excellently in its core areas of mandate as a technological tertiary institution. According to him, what goes on in the society now is not a question of having certificate, but what can be done with the certificate. “We talk about the blue-color job all over the world, people want to put on their tie. But here we talk about the job you do with your hands. What service can you render with you certificate? And that is the level we are going into now”.
The Rector underscored the point that the purpose of education should be for skills acquisition as it is the mandate in the polytechnic. ” We train our students to have manipulative skills, so that they don’t go out looking for job. They become job creators. And believing me, when you take the census, there is nobody that has passed through the polytechnic system that will not be a job creator.”
He explained that government is trying to radicalize its services. And it is against this background that the digital economy is already reducing need for manpower. The Polytechnic helmsman appealed to parents to allow their children to acquire manipulative and vocational skills that will help them, as gone are those days when those who attended a technical school or a polytechnic were seen as never-do-wells.
“If you must be a very good fashion designer, the people we refer to as tailor, if you are not intelligent you cannot deliver. It’s a high skill job. If there is no government job, they will be able to create jobs for themselves. It is not a question of having your PhD. If you have your PhD,what can you do with it? That’s the stage we are now. So we will want our people,the society to embrace vocational technical educational skills”.
He commended the federal government for making it compulsory that all students that pass through the polytechnic educational system must have skills that are different from their primary course of study. Adding that acquiring skills in other areas will help the society to grow. And when people are shunning or avoiding skills that are manipulative, surprisingly at the end of the day, there may not be plumbers to fix the pipes at home. The welders will not be there. He stressed.
Dr Alake further posited that as it is now, the needs of the society are being catered for through the polytechnic education arena. While the federal government through Tertiary Educcation Trust Fund, TETFUND , is actually supporting the educational system. Supportive in the sense that they have different intervention lines. Part of the intervention lines, the Rector mentioned is the infrastructural development.
“We have structures here that were wholly sponsored and financed by TETFUND. We have the capital projects arena, where the federal government through the budgetary allocation will release funds and then project lines. Some of our projects that are on-going we get them through that. And by the grace of God we also have what we refer to as the internally-generated revenue line where some projects can be executed through that. So, these are all intervention lines that have been helping us to move forward”.
Dr Alake who is the seventh substantive Rector of the Polytechnic, appreciated all the past rectors of the polytechnic for their contributions, pointing out that the job of a Rector is challenging.
On staff welfare, he believes that it is wrong to hold the rights and benefits of the workers and one thinks peace will reign. He said workers must be motivated for them to deliver. To him, there are wonderful workers in the institution. “The cream of workers we have in the polytechnic are highly qualified professionals that can fit into any challenge that may confront them. And these are people are delivering. Whatever that we are achieving today it is not Alake that is achieving it. I can boldly say that sacrifices of all members of the community have actually helped us”.
