The Role of Vocational and Technical Education in Manpower Development and Job Creation in Nigeria

Technical education, as entrenched in the Nigerian National Policy on Education, is concerned with qualitative technological human resources development directed towards a national pool of skilled and self-reliant craftsmen, technicians and technologists in technical and vocational fields. The two key phrases, which readily come to mind in this type of education, are competency-based skill-acquisition and sound scientific knowledge. In order to cope with the requirements of fast developing economy, to gear up employment generation and meet the challenges of globalization, it was absolutely imperative to realign Technical and Vocational Education system in the country to cater for these requirements. This paper attempts to appraise the contributions of this often neglected but yet inevitable educational sector in order to make significant progress in terms of national development and job creation