Merging technical, science colleges, a mistake to be corrected – Minister

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, has expressed displeasure over the merging of technical and science colleges, saying it eroded the gains for establishing technical colleges across the country.

Mamman disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday at a One-Day Stakeholders’ Meeting, on the Challenges and Issues Affecting technical colleges in the country.

He said that students in technical colleges must go purely for technically specialised skills and training.

According to him, from this academic session, we have resolved in the ministry to take special focus on the technical colleges.

”At what stage do we have the technical colleges become science and technical colleges? They were supposed to be federal government technical schools.

“So at what stage did we smuggle in science? I don’t understand. We know that science is very key to everything we are doing, but that is not on the agenda for this institution.

”Those who want to do science programmes should go to regular colleges and continue their programmes there.

”So it was clearly a mistake at whatever stage this decision was taken, and with the rest of my colleagues, the minister of states, the permanent secretary, and the directors,.

”We are going to take a hard look at this decision,” he said.

He bemoaned the low enrolment of students in the technical colleges.

Mamman explained that nothing could degrade the service to the essence of establishing the technical colleges’ institution and finding ourselves in this situation.

He further said that establishing technical colleges was for particular qualifications, noting that the skills acquired would help transform the country.

“This is really important because the technical colleges are at the heart of what this ministry and government want to achieve for this country.

“It is about our educational system, and as it has been said, when you’re able to achieve it in education, the nation succeeds.

”This is because we provide the primary manpower for the country, which has an impact on all sectors of the country,” he said.

The Minister, however, pledged to explore the institutions in such a way that the technical teachers would be sent for up-skilling to be abreast of what was obtainable.

He commended the Universal Basic Education Commission's (UBEC) smart school initiatives in every school, saying that the initiative would provide the robust digitisation needed for the growth of the country.