Tunji Alausa, minister of education, has initiated a comprehensive transformation of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to strengthen its regulatory capacity and reposition it as a key driver of Nigeria’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system.
The reform, which is being supported by KPMG Advisory Services, is aimed at strengthening NBTE’s institutional effectiveness, governance structure and operational capacity to enable the board to better regulate, coordinate and support polytechnics, monotechnics and other technical institutions.
According to a statement issued by Ikharo Attah, special adviser to the minister on media and communications, on Wednesday, the initiative is also designed to align skills development with Nigeria’s economic and workforce priorities.
The federal ministry of education engaged KPMG to conduct a comprehensive institutional assessment and develop a future-ready organisational structure, governance model and operating framework for NBTE.
Alausa said the engagement reflected the ministry’s commitment to ensuring that institutions responsible for technical education were properly structured, adequately resourced and capable of providing effective leadership for the country’s skills development agenda.
“The success of Nigeria’s TVET reforms depends not only on curriculum and infrastructure, but also on the strength and effectiveness of the institutions responsible for implementation and oversight,” the minister said.
He said a strengthened NBTE was critical to the realisation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and the broader objective of developing a skilled, productive and globally competitive workforce capable of supporting industrialisation, innovation and sustainable economic growth.
The minister said the restructuring would go beyond administrative reform, describing it as a strategic intervention to make NBTE a modern, agile and fit-for-purpose institution capable of driving transformation in technical and vocational education nationwide.
He added that the assessment would identify gaps and opportunities across governance, organisational design, operating processes, workforce capability and service delivery.
The resulting transformation roadmap, he said, would provide a framework for aligning NBTE’s structure and operations with its statutory responsibilities and the Federal Government’s wider TVET reform agenda.
Alausa also stressed the importance of polytechnic education within Nigeria’s broader TVET ecosystem, saying the system must prioritise skills acquisition, employability, innovation and enterprise development.
“Technical and vocational education is fundamentally about skills. Everything within the polytechnic system is ultimately geared towards developing competencies that create pathways to employment, entrepreneurship, and productivity,” he said.
He said the philosophy was guiding the ongoing review of polytechnic curricula and development of National Occupational Standards (NOS) to ensure training programmes remained relevant to industry needs, technological advancement and emerging economic opportunities.
The curriculum modernisation programme, supported by a ₦1 billion intervention from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has produced 27 new National Occupational Standards and updated four existing standards, bringing the total number of reviewed standards to 31.
The standards are expected to create a more coherent skills development pathway spanning artisan-level training, National Certificates, Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes.
Alausa said the reforms were intended to ensure that graduates of technical institutions acquired practical and market-relevant competencies that would improve employability, encourage entrepreneurship and boost national productivity.
Providing an industry perspective, Oluwole Adelokun, Partner, Strategy and Customer Solutions at KPMG Africa and KPMG in Nigeria, said the firm’s assessment identified structural challenges within Nigeria’s TVET sector as well as opportunities to unlock its potential through targeted reforms and institutional strengthening.
Adelokun said about 93 percent of Nigeria’s workforce operates in the informal economy, while nearly 12 percent of young people are not engaged in education, employment or skills training.
He said the figures reinforced the need for a more inclusive and responsive skills development system.
Despite the challenges, Adelokun said Nigeria ranked second only to Singapore among the countries assessed in the employability of TVET graduates.
He said the finding demonstrated the potential of Nigeria’s TVET system to produce industry-ready talent capable of meeting labour market demands.
Adelokun also identified curriculum modernisation as a major priority, noting that more than 55 percent of assessed curricula across disciplines, including engineering, science, arts and design, were outdated.
He identified funding constraints and the existing five-year curriculum review cycle as key challenges to curriculum responsiveness, while citing the recent revision of the agriculture curriculum as a positive development.
Responding to the findings, Alausa said insights from the KPMG assessment, alongside ongoing curriculum and skills development reforms, would provide a strong foundation for repositioning NBTE as a more effective catalyst for technical and vocational education.
He said a restructured NBTE would be better placed to strengthen oversight of institutions under its mandate, improve quality assurance and accountability, deepen industry collaboration and ensure technical education remained responsive to changing workforce and economic needs.
Alausa reaffirmed the Federal Ministry of Education’s commitment to building a TVET system anchored on industry relevance, practical competence, innovation, employability and productivity.
He described the transformation of NBTE as a critical pillar of the Federal Government’s human capital development strategy.
“The ultimate objective is to build a more agile, effective, and future-ready institution capable of delivering on its mandate and supporting the realization of President Tinubu’s vision of a highly skilled, productive, and globally competitive Nigerian workforce,” he said.
