Towards Quality Technical Vocational Education and Training (Tvet) Programmes in Nigeria: Challenges and Improvement Strategies

Abstract

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is widely recognized as a vital driving force for the socio-economic growth and technological development of nations. In achieving the goals and objectives of TVET in Nigeria, the quality of the programme needs to be improved and sustained. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the challenges and improvement strategies of attaining quality TVET programmes in Nigerian tertiary institutions. Four research questions were raised to guide the study and four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using z-test statistics. The survey research design was used and a total 160 registered Nigerian Vocational Association (NVA) members participated in the study. The instrument of data collection was a questionnaire (CSQTVETQ) and data were collected by the researchers. The study revealed the following factors as challenges of attaining quality TVET programmes in Nigeria tertiary institutions: lack of required TVET facilities, poor funding of TVET programmes; poor teaching methods employed by teachers; and poor assessment of TVET students’ competency. Also, the study showed that adequate funding; training and retraining of TVET teachers; provision of required TVET facilities; adequate internal and external supervision; and public private partnership are improvement strategies for quality TVET programmes in Nigeria. Thus, it was recommended that the government, stakeholders, policy makers and TVET providers in Nigeria should focus on TVET quality assurance best practices that have worked in countries around the world.