REPOSITIONING VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION AT NCE LEVEL TO INTEGRATE APPRENTICESHIP SCHEME TOWARDS SELF-EMPLOYMENT FOR ITS GRADUATES

Abstract

This paper examined how to reposition Vocational and Technical Education Programme at NCE level to integrate apprenticeship scheme towards realization of self-employment by NCE graduates. The paper looked at the failure of the current VTE programme in turning out employment and wealth creators as against seekers of white color job graduates. It also ex-rayed the alarming rate of unemployment among the youths and graduates in the country as failure of these academic programmes. The VTE alongside Science and Technology was envisioned in the National Policy on Education (2004) as a leeway out of the economic quagmire, but the implementation appears to have failed woefully hence the unabated rise in unemployment. This paper, therefore, is of the view that we integrate apprenticeship scheme in the NCE VTE programme through its curriculum reform, drawing from priorities placed on apprenticeship scheme by advanced countries who saw this scheme as bedrock of industrial and economic revolution far back some centuries ago. To this end, this paper recommended six points that can lead to curriculum and VTE programme reforms among which is that NCE VTE curriculum should provide for one full year apprenticeship scheme within the 3 year NCE, while first and third years be devoted for academic studies, and total courses reduced to half for very essential courses only, including Teaching practice.