Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
For a better and thriving economy, the Managing Director of Beautiful Beginning Academy, Dr. Rosemary Nasa-Okolie Kokoeka, has called on the Federal Government to put in more investment in functional education.
She said this will motivate school children, help to mop up almajiri children off the streets and encourage out-of school children towards seeking legitimate means of livelihood as against wasting their youthfulness in societal vices.
Stating this in Abuja during the weekly skills acquisition programme of students of Beautiful Beginning Academy, Kokoeka disclosed that she introduced intensive skills acquisition programmes to the students after observing the Nigerian society and the gaps that exist between formal and functional education.
She remarked that with such realization and its inability to solve all the problems the country was facing, she concluded it was time to think outside the box, hence the training in different fields.
She also called on parents to support their children in their chosen fields and must desist from covertly trying to live the lives the couldn’t in their children.
According to her, “The government is working. However, I’m pleading that it looks into the need of investing more in functional education as world over, it has been proven that skills acquisition and practicalizing afterwards is a driving force for every economy.
“That way, we will be able to mop up children from the streets and young adults so that they don’t waste their youthfulness in societal vices. This will benefit the country socioeconomically and there will be more plumbers, electricians and skills. This is not what an individual can do. So well-meaning individuals can come together and make this difference.
“Most parents, especially mothers are contributing to the malaise . They don’t want their children to suffer and they are living there lives in those of their children.”
In the dichotomy already created between university degrees and Higher Diploma certificates, Kokoeka said: “There should be no dichotomy between university and polytechnic certificates. The results should be seen as equal with no form of discrimination.”
On his part, the Principal of the school, Mr. Harry Essang, said the government has a huge role to play in the enforcement of skills acquisition in schools.
He noted that most times, schools don’t have the needed equipment and manpower to teach the students and will not want to pay professionals to do so.
According to him, “Enforcement is key, because in theory, it’s in the curriculum. Government should monitor the actual practical skills and not just theoretical.
“So until we begin to move out of that theoretical way of thinking, we never might get it right because technological education is been looked down on in Nigeria and yet we continue to bring in specialists from other countries because the people there value technical education.”
The skills include plumbing, tailoring, phone repairing, soap making, perfumes making, graphic designing, and several others.