FG urged to address dearth of technical teachers

The Principal of the Federal Science and Technical College (FSTC), Yaba, Rev. Chris Ugorji, has urged the federal government to improve funding of technical education especially in the area of recruiting more technical teachers so that the country can advance technologically.

He said this while fielding questions from journalists at the 9th valedictory service of the College on Sunday where he disclosed that the College currently offers 19 trade subjects with 12 workshops for practical but most of the teachers of technical subjects are no longer available.

“I want to urge federal government to focus on this area because trade subjects are needed for the students to move the country forward technologically and there is a lot of awareness on the part of parents on the importance of technical education while organisations are also requesting for our graduates because they are hot cakes for them,” he said.

On his advice for the graduating students he said the College has impacted in them seriously not just in academics but in moral, hard work, diligence, respect, commitment and tenacity saying with all these nuggets they can’t afford to fail as they are expected to be high flyers in their various endeavours.

“Government is doing a lot in terms of raising the standard of the College for instance the Minister of State for Education is coming to commission a project which is a state of the art ICT called Internet of Everything on Thursday but government alone cannot do it there is need for corporate organisations and individuals to also compliment the efforts of government in the area of technical education,” he said.

Ugorji said he would like to be remembered for his modest achievements such as building confidence in the students to believe in themselves, instilling discipline in them as well as decent dress sense saying none of the students can be seen with indecent dressing as he made himself a role model to them.

On the area of challenges in the College he said the workshop needs to be repackaged, more classrooms accommodation, replacement of old and obsolete machines in the technical workshops with modern ones as well as training and retraining of teachers to meet the demands of advanced technology.

About 730 students comprising science and technical students graduated at the ceremony.

In his word of admonition to the graduating students, the Director of Basic and Secondary Education, Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja, Jonathan Mbaakaa, urged them to be good ambassadors of the College and see their future as being bright while they work towards making their future as bright as possible.

“They are the future of this country if they do the right thing then this country will be better, upbringing of children is the role of the home, school and the society but nowadays the society is not doing what it should, it has left the upbringing to the home alone, when we were growing society impacted a lot in us but it is no longer so,” he said.

He congratulated the students that did technical subjects saying the sky is their beginning because they have both academic qualification and have been trained in a trade thus, they should go out and put their trade into practice by making use of the skills they have acquired because the era of white collar jobs is over.

Esther Taiwo