Edo launches N300m facility to boost technical education

The Edo State government has launched the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) project to boost the development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the state.

Joan Osa-Oviawe, commissioner for education, who spoke at the launch of the programme, said it has a N300 million support grant targeted at assisting TVET providers and trainers in the six states of south-south so as to further strengthen the TVET subsector.

“The IDEAS programme is a federal ministry of education-World Bank-supported grant project and among its components is strengthening TVET schools and private sector TVET providers.

“It’s over 300 million naira and applicable to private sector providers of training in digital skills in the six states of south-south Nigeria, and Edo happens to be the state chosen to administer this grant and the implementers are the Edo State Board of TVET.

“The project is an additional resource to help us further advance in terms of the progress we are making on education reforms, particularly in the TVET subsector,” Osa-Oviawe said.

She added: “One of our TVET strategies in Edo State based on the directives of Governor Godwin Obaseki is to formalize our non-formal TVET sector- the private people who run vocational centres, apprenticeship programmes- to know who exists in Edo.

“To benefit from this innovation grant, you have to be registered with the ministry of education as a vocational training centre and show proof that you exist. Part of this is to eliminate ad-hoc training centres that just follow the money and after getting it, shut their services down.

“We will work with NBTE and NABTEB, provide curriculum and standard so that anybody being trained in Edo is being trained on a certain standard,” she said.

Augustine Ighodaro, the secretary, Edo Board of TVET, said: “We are going to open up the opportunity for them to apply online and then invite them. Procedures are there to see those who are actually serious and innovative and want to actually teach. We wouldn’t want a situation where somebody takes this money and goes to do something else with it because the beneficiaries are the youths.”