Ogun State Government has revealed its intention to empower people in the informal and non-formal sectors through structured curriculum training programme and certification, to further enhance their skills.
Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu made this known at Lisabi Grammar School Abeokuta, during a workshop and critique organised by the Ministry and Ogun State Economic Transformation Project (OGSTEP) for Review of National Occupational Standard (NOS) for selected trades, entrepreneurship, leadership and literacy skills in the State.
Arigbabu said the workshop would help to rebuild and develop the skills curriculum and come up with robust packages that would stand the test of time, noting that the curriculum would allow certification for different stages attained during their training programmes.
The Commissioner added that the initiative would help the informal and non-formal skills personnel to add more knowledge either through acquisition of literacy and management to their already acquired skills.
He said, “there is a need to properly empower those who are in these trades. We are trying to look into and develop the curricula for each trade and also put in place different stages of training and at the end of each stage, certification will be issued. This will give them an opportunity to have something to show for their acquired skills”.
In his remark, the World Bank Skills Development Specialist, Mr. Adesegun Fatoki stated that the importance of the curriculum development was to ensure that standard was being maintained across all the trades, saying the State was keying into the established standard of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for improved curriculum and certification.
In their responses, some of the participants at the workshop, Mr. Gboyega Ogunleye and Mrs. Soyele Mojisola said the programme was to domesticate the national education standard as required by NBTE, they said those that have acquired skills in different informal and non-formal sectors would have opportunity to be certified after going through some basic training.
