Aregbesola Calls for Collaboration between Govt, Private Sector to Empower Students

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has appealed to polytechnics in the country to work with government and corporate organisations by establishing a system of entrepreneurship that will retool its students.

Aregbesola, who made this appeal recently while delivering the 27th convocation lecture of Lagos State Polytechnic titled ‘Infrastructural Deficit and Technological Development in Nigeria: The Role of Technical Education’, expressed concern that graduates are acquiring bland certificates that do not equip them with life sustaining skills, adding that most times, they are turned down by employers who consider them as unemployable.

“Polytechnics complain that their graduates are discriminated against by employers. This is self- indicting. Employers, besides the public sector, are rational actors, they want well trained productive graduates that will add value to their enterprise.”

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He also expressed concern about the quality of polytechnic graduates, saying that they are supposed to have an advantage over their university counterparts, but that their knowledge and skills have become so obsolete that they have to be trained and retrained to be able to fit into the workplace.

“This is where the schools fail their graduates and is the basis of rejection,” the minister said, adding that polytechnics should prepare their students for a competitive job market with indisputable and unignorable job skills.”

Aregbesola, who stressed the importance of certified technical knowledge, said this should be a requisite for any person aspiring to be a builder.

“Needs also exist in improved building and landscaping techniques. Our environment is ugly and we are in constant danger of building collapse because then technical knowledge is missing. Certified technical knowledge is the file in some of our neighbouring countries where it is compulsory to receive technical education before being certified as competent to engage in any aspect of construction.”

The beauty of the built-up environment in developed countries, the minister said, is largely due to landscape engineering which is what separates the civilised from the uncivilised environment.

source: Thisday News