Stakeholders in the technical education sub-sector, have decried the continued decline in budgetary allocation to the sector, which they said was impacting negatively on technological transfer.
This poor funding challenge was identified by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) in a paper presented on Saturday at the Nasarawa State Polytechnic, which showed that the allocation to the sub-sector in the 2014 national budget was put at 0.25% from the total of 421 billion Naira education budget.
In a lecture entitled; “Science and Technical Education for Economic Development”, the guest lecturer, Professor Yakubu Ngwai, said that a 0.25% allocation from the total of 421 billion Naira allocated to the education sector, did not show a true attempt by the Federal Government to revamp technical education.
It was the graduation ceremony of over 12,000 students of the Nasarawa State polytechnic, who have waited since 2002 after graduation for a formal convocation ceremony. It was the institution’s first convocation ceremony.
The Executive Secretary of the NBTE, Thomas Adekunle, told the gathering that no country could develop without a sustainable technological transfer programme.
Also at the event was the Governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-makura and he pointed out that the convocation exercise was part of the redemption programme of the government for the over 12,000 students who have waited since 2002 for the combined convocation.
Some of the students also decried the government’s poor funding of technical education and stressed that it had remained an avenue of empowering students to contribute to the growth of technology in every country.