Revitalizing Technical and Vocational Education for Transition to a Knowledge Based-Economy

Sound educational system is sine-qua-non for any nation that wants to attain high level of economic awareness. Functional education, as a solution based and society/industry driven education is un-disguisedly what the nation needs for transition into the knowledge based economy. It has been appreciated that Technical/vocat5ional education is the missing link in the nation's educational system. The dearth of skilled manpower consequent on this has obvious negative implications on the critical sectors of the economy, hence the deplorable state of the Nigerian economy. In view of this, Technical/vocational education should be prioritized to provide the citizens with lifelong/employable skills for their survival and for the nation to attain accelerated economic development/growth. The findings showed that while Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) has continued to hold sway in industrialized/emerging economies, where it has continued to propel national development, phenomenal economic growth, Nigeria has neglected it. Against this backdrop, therefore it is suggested that Technical/vocational education needs to be strategically repositioned to accelerate meaningful economic development/growth and more importantly to fast track the nation in global reckoning.