The foundation of economic growth globally is technical/vocational education. Technical education is cardinal to the socio/economic development of any nation. Following this fact, stakeholders have emphasized the need to establish more well equipped technical schools in the country to boost development.
It was in realization of this importance that the federal government established the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) in January 1977 in response to the acute shortage of technical manpower which was a major constraint towards the execution of the then 1975 – 1980 Third National Development Plan on Education.
The NBTE is saddled with overseeing the training of, and accreditation of academic programmes in all technical and vocational educational institutions. These institutions are to train middle-level technical manpower, and provide practical training.
Technical education is offered in institutions that are higher education in level, but non-university in status. Polytechnics, monotechnics (single discipline training), technical colleges, colleges of education, agriculture and health technology all provide higher technical education and training.
With the exception of colleges of education, which is overseen by the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), the rest of the technical higher institutions are coordinated by the NBTE.
As at October 2012, there were 110 approved tertiary technical institutions and 159 technical colleges under the purview of the NBTE, 74 polytechnics and 27 monotechnic colleges.
Others include, 36 colleges of agriculture, 50 colleges of health technology, 16 other specialised institutions, 71 vocational enterprise institutions (VEIs) and innovative enterprise institutions (IEIs), making a total of 543 institutions.
Analysts say this number is grossly inadequate given the unprecedented level of demand for technical education in the country. These institutions can only accommodate a fraction of the youths seeking admission because of inadequate space.
Records from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) indicated that out of 5.4 million applicants for admission into polytechnics between 2006 and 2012, only 1.2 million of them could gain admission, representing 21.5 percent.
Clearly, the inadequate number of vocational institutions has led to the arbitrary abuse of Carrying Capacity of Nigeria Tertiary Institutions. Carrying Capacity of institutions refers to the maximum number of students an institution can sustain for quality education based on human and material resources.
In other words, Carrying Capacity stipulates that the number of students to be admitted into programmes must be based on available facilities such as adequate lecture rooms, well equipped libraries, staff/student ratio, laboratories and equipment, among others.
But it has been observed that many technical institutions don’t comply with the rules. They indulge in borrowing lecturers and staff as well as facilities from other institutions to conceal their defects. Some stakeholders have frowned at the practice and describe it as improper.
An educationist and former principal, Mr. Ignatius Lawson, says such practice is immoral and fraudulent which ought to take the offenders to prison. According to him, schools should adhere to international best practice or be shut.
“International best practice provides for 30 students per class in technical and vocational and 40 for management-based programmes, but some institutions advocate 70, others even more than 100.
“Best practice also pegs staff/student ratio at 1:15 for technology-based programmes and 1:20 for non-technology based. This policy is aimed at ensuring  quality of instruction and schools must not exceed their capacity or compromise minimum standard, “ said Lawson.
Similarly, a Port Harcourt-based lecturer, who chose to be anonymous, blamed the deficit in institutions and learning infrastructure in the country on poor funding and lack of attention to technical education.
She said infrastructure such as access to internet, library, textbooks, equipment, laboratories and classrooms are lacking and therefore result in the deterioration of technical education and learning.
“Technical and vocational education is all about skill acquisition and competence-based. Facilities that will enhance skill acquisition are important to the teaching and learning process in technical and vocational education.
“Unfortunately, these facilities like workshops, laboratories, studies and field facilities are lacking for the various programmes in conformity with the minimum standards prescribed in the curriculum,” she said.
Sharing similar sentiments, a legal practitioner, Mr. Biobele Fyneface, asked the government to expand access to technical and vocational education in line with equity and international best practice.
He added that although at this critical moment, the country required more technically skilled manpower in the economy, students’ enrollment into technically-related programmes cannot be increased arbitrarily without corresponding increase in the resources required to sustain the additional intakes.
A nursery/primary school proprietress, Mrs Elem Ochonma,  observed that some important factors must be considered in determining the capacity for an academic programme without compromising quality.
According to her, the factors include the target population of prospective students to be trained, the human and material resources available for training and the technology and methodology to be deployed in carrying out the training.
She posited the need for quality assurance mechanism to ensure quality teaching and said the federal government should initiate steps that would enhance the standards of technical and vocational education in the country.
A civil servant in the Rivers State Ministry of Works, who asked to remain anonymous, said the number of technical schools in the country was inadequate and asked the government to establish more functional ones to boost access to skill acquisition. He said if technical institutions in the country were many, only few persons would like to go to the universities.
“I think we have a situation in this country where we focus too much on the liberal arts and sciences. Everyone goes to the university and then have no job on graduation. We need a skilled technical labour force in every state; almost as many technical colleges as the universities we have.
“You go to restaurants and hotels, and you don’t get good services because people don’t learn it. This is because we don’t have enough vocational institutions where people get proper training. If there were as many technical and vocational institutions as there were universities in the country, not everyone would like to go to the university.
“Therefore, there is need to elevate the standard of technical and vocational education so that the people can tap from the gains that accrue from it. This way we will reduce congestion in the universities and strengthen the service aspect of our industry,” he concluded.
In all, stakeholders believe that enterprise development, acquired through vocational education, is essential for job creation and poverty reduction.

Arnold Alalibo