Executive Vice Chairman, National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Professor Mohammed Sani Haruna, says vocational and technical education in Nigeria has been neglected.
He stated this in Kaduna yesterday during an interview with newsmen after commissioning a theatre hall named after him by the management of the Kaduna Polytechnic.
- NIGERIA DAILY: Cost Of Production Makes Rice Expensive
- Regency Alliance pays N1.031bn claims in 2021
The NASENI boss, who is an alumnus of the polytechnic, said vocational and technical education needed government attention for the country to develop.
“As for technological education and vocational education, this is a neglected sector. Many of the technical and craft schools that existed before have been wiped out. Until we restore them, we will not have a foundation.
‘It is not everybody that needs to go to university. You need this technical education, you need skills to be able to do things, and theory without practical cannot take us to the promise land,” he said.
Haruna said President Muhammadu Buhari paid due attention to research and development activities as well as the development of the science and technology sector by putting more funds in infrastructure and training capacity to qualify to do research.
He also stated that Buhari’s administration had given more funding and created so many research funding windows from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Ecological Funds and so on.
The NASENI boss thanked the management of the Kaduna Polytechnic for finding him worthy of the recognition by naming the theatre hall after him.
Earlier, the national president of the Alumni Association of Kaduna Polytechnic, Alhaji Abba Anas Adamu, had said this was the first time the institution celebrated one of its alumni.
He attributed Haruna’s recognition to his contributions to science education.
He said Haruna also deserved the recognition for his contributions to the development of the alumni and the institution.