The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has raised concern over the lack of quality assurance and level of preparedness in the nation’s technical and vocational education system due to the low number of quality assessors in the region.

The Executive Secretary, NBTE, Professor Idris Muhammad Bugaje represented by his special assistant, Ibrahim Bello Bashir made the remarks at a Quality Assurance Assessor’s Training for the Innovation, Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) project Northwest zone held in Kano.

 He said, “There is a huge gap in assessors, Nigeria is a country of over 200 million people but the quality assurance assessors we have as at today is about 1,500. This is a huge gap as far as skills acquisition is concerned.

 “Compared with Togo, the Benin Republic and Ethiopia with a population of slightly 60-80 million, has assessors of more than 60,000 assessors. Benin Republic has the range of 25-40,000 assessors so also is Cote d’Ivoire while Nigeria has a population of over 200 million.”

Earlier, the Project Manager, IDEAS, Engr Abbati Muhammad ADK said the project is World Bank supported with a credit of 200 million dollars under the federal ministry of education executed in the six states from the geopolitical zones of the federation.

 The project, according to Ahmad Tijjani Abdullahi, Executive Secretary of the Kano State Science and Technical Schools Board, came at a crucial time when technical and vocational education was lagging behind despite numerous government interventions.