The Chairman, Ekiti State Board for Technical and Vocational Education, Kayode Babade, has said the Kayode Fayemi administration is investing in technical education to give youths of the state a better future.
Babade, who described technical education as the foundation for the technological growth of any nation, said the secret of countries like China, Japan and South Korea was having technical education as their basic foundation.
He said, “Ekiti State Government is investing in technical education so that we can give the youths a future and a hope. We are through this, creating an avenue for job creation and producing employers of labour.
“We want to, through technical education, eradicate or drastically reduce unemployment among the youths. Such will bring down youth restiveness. When there is no youth restiveness, there will be absolute peace in our communities. We must all drop this idea of white-collar jobs and think of what we can do with our brains and our hands,” Babade said.
He said the efforts of the administration to reposition the technical colleges in the state inherited in a state of neglect for effective technical education had started yielding fruits.
According to him, the state had begun making technical colleges attractive to youths, a development which he said had increased admission in the five government technical colleges in the state from 215 last session to 969 in the present session.
He said, “From Year One population of 215 last session, we were able to move to 969 now. GTC Igbara Odo had eight students last session, but now 154; the one in Ado Ekiti which had 115 before has 444 now, Ijero GTC had 12 last session but 129 fresh students now, Otun had 22 last year but now 120, Ikole, the same thing because we did a lot of advocacy”.
The BTVE boss disclosed the plan of the state government to rehabilitate all technical colleges in the state, saying, “We already have the support of the World Bank for three government technical colleges in Ekiti State – the one at Igbara Odo, Ijero and Otun Ekiti.
“It was the World Bank support vis a vis Ekiti State Government that renovated GTC, Ado Ekiti to that level.”
Babade said the contract for the fencing of the three benefiting technical colleges had been awarded by the state government, saying, “The World Bank will move in to do infrastructural development and supply of equipment into the workshops. That will start soon when the coronavirus issue is over.”
