Vocational Education And National Development

Technical education
is the only potent instrument for national development and industrial growth. The quality of technical education therefore in any society will affect the level of national development and industrial growth. The last resort is that it has provided lasting solution to self-reliance and national development.
Aside, technical education is a form of education that is aimed at providing training and imparting necessary skills leading to the production of craftsmen, technicians and other skilled personnel, who will be enterprising and self-reliant: National policy on Education (1981 P.18).
What is national development? It is defined by many people to mean different thing, for instance, Musa (1985), sees the coucept as a “Euro-American term through culturally based, used to characterise the relative standard of living of the people between the highly industrialised nations of the North and, the consumer-import dependent nation of the South”. But in the context of this, write-up, national development is viewed according to Igweh’s definition as reduction in the level of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and income inequality.
Technical education is also a programme that involves lots of funds to achieve set goals in order to get it effectively implemented for the benefit of national development. Based on this challenges, the federal, organisations and individuals have risen to the demand of ensuring the success of this program.
For this purpose of development, be it educationally, sociaIy and economically, to play in order not to leave these roles in the hands of the government. Olaitan, S. O. (2008) has this to say:  “It is customary for some people to believe that the government should be responsible for the provision of all amenities and the welfare requirements of the people under its jurisdiction. ln most cases these expectation are never fulfilled and there is a general apathy among the people towards government’s readiness to provide the people with their basic needs”.
All this sacrificial efforts must be aimed at reducing and raising the living standard of Nigerians. It is expected that children shquld have access to education, by so doing they dn be exposed to basic knowledge and skills in introductory technology, which could make them to be independent and self-reliant.
Funding and Fi nancing of technological education must be the priority of’the government at all tiers, private organisations and individuals. The roles of the teachers is of significant value in the implementation of vocational and technical curriculum towards achieving this objectives. The commitment to work, provision of instructional material when not available should be the duty of the teachers to provide them. Students’ have a price to pay too in the, developmental crusade for this nation.
All hands must be on deck to save this nation out of poverty, dependent syndrome and self-reliance through technical skills acquisition. This should be the utmost focus and goals for all Nigerians.
The critical assessment ofthe present situation in Nigeria reveals that there are no enough jobs (except perhaps on the farms) to absorb thousands of school leavers who are yearly produced by schools irrespective of whatever skills, they may possess. If the national policy on education is rigidly implemented, senior secondary school students will imbibe technically ski lis and become employable or self-reliant.
Julius, is of the Dept. of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Aremu Sanya Julius