Brain Drain: Nigeria should embrace indigenous production of laboratory tools- NBTE

Executive Secretary, National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Prof Idris Bugaje, says it is high time Nigeria conceived the opportunities that are embedded in indigenous production of and fabrication of laboratory pieces of equipment, tools and resources.

He said doing so will not only help to conserve foreign exchange and reduce brain drain but also improve availability in Polytechnics.

Bugaja who stated this during a workshop on intervention for the development of engineering laboratories for polytechnics organised by LiviaSoft in Abuja, also lamented the state of poor state of laboratories in polytechnics in the country.

Represented by the Chief Admin Officer (Liaison), Bello Abdulhakeem, the NBTE boss said the poor state of the nation’s laboratories had negatively and technically affected the performance of graduates and the country’s technical development.

He said: “It if my firm belief that investing in education is investing in the future. Therefore, equipping our schools with the necessary laboratory tools and resources cannot be overemphasised. If our youth who are the leaders of tomorrow are propelled to occupy the roles, responsibilities and challenges expected of them.

In his remark, Chief Executive Officer, LiviaSoft Technologies, Dr. Bobga Danjuma called for a review of polytechnic curriculum, saying the workshop was organised to prepare polytechnic graduates for the labour market.

While noting the goal of the workshop was to link polytechnic students to the industries, Danjuma said students from the six geopolitical zones were picked to participate in the two day workshop.

Also, the regional sales manager for Anritsu, Amish Lad said for Nigeria to tackle issue of brain drain, it should enable and provide funds to the education sector adding that Nigeria should take it serious so that the sector will help to increase the GDP of the country.

He said getting the education sector right will make Nigeria become a leader in Africa in the tech world.

“Communication is a very important field that Nigeria should be focusing on and equipping correct solutions in tertiary institutions’’ lab so that engineers would be trained to know the basis of using solutions like the spectrum analyzers and others,” he said