The Alumni Association of Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech) has called on the Federal Government to review all policies guiding polytechnic education to tackle the nation’s unemployment challenge.
President of the alumni, Pastor Oluwafemi Martins, said at a national workshop themed, ‘Business Financing in a Growing Economy – Towards National Economic Recovery,’ organised by the association to mark the institution’s 70th anniversary in Lagos, “Polytechnic education should be geared towards advancing the economic policy direction of the nation, with specific regards to solving the alarming increase in graduate unemployment.”
He added that polytechnic education was not having the real impact on industrial and technological development and was yet to seriously help in tackling and reducing unemployment.
Earlier, the Chairman, Governing Council of Yabatech, Prince Lateef O. Fagbemi SAN, urged government to assist unemployed youths spread across the country, adding that “business financing will help them set up their Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs).”
Also speaking, an alumnus of the polytechnic, Prof. Fola Lasisi, said the workshop was about re-birthing Yabatech. “At 70, it’s a revival, a reckoning and a new life of starting over for this institution,” he added.