By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives has demanded stronger accountability and improved access to information on the Federal Government’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme after the Ministry of Education allegedly ignored six letters seeking details of its implementation.
The demand came on Tuesday when the House Committee on Federal Polytechnics and Higher Technical Education met with the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, in Abuja, following months of unanswered correspondence and two summonses issued to the ministry.
At the meeting, Alausa disclosed that more than 250,000 Nigerians were currently undergoing skills training at about 1,200 centres nationwide, with each trainee receiving a monthly stipend of N30,000 and participating training centres getting N50,000 per student to support instruction.
The figures offered a glimpse into the scale of the programme, which has attracted more than one million applicants in each of its first two enrolment exercises, despite funding and training capacity constraints.
However, the committee’s concerns centred on the ministry’s failure to provide information required for effective legislative oversight of the initiative.
Chairman of the committee, Rep. Fuad Kayode Laguda, who represents Surulere I Federal Constituency of Lagos State, said lawmakers had written six letters between January 2025 and July 2026 seeking updates on the programme’s activities, implementation and progress without receiving a response.
He said the committee had also invited the ministry to a meeting in July, but neither the minister nor any representative appeared, forcing the lawmakers to summon Alausa and subsequently issue a final summons in August.
“We wrote six different correspondences on the same subject matter, requesting status reports on TVET’s activities and programmes. We did not get any response from your ministry,” Laguda said.
The chairman stressed that access to information was essential for the committee to determine whether the programme was meeting its objectives, identify implementation challenges and ensure that public funds were being used effectively.
“Information is power. Having more knowledge about what is going on will aid us in carrying out our expected duties and having oversight functions,” he said.
He said the committee was particularly interested in understanding the programme’s entire value chain, including its funding, the selection and monitoring of training centres, the quality of instruction and the employment prospects of beneficiaries.
Responding, Alausa apologized to the lawmakers, saying he had not personally received the correspondence sent by the committee.
“I would have to profusely apologise and let you know that I did not get any of the correspondence that you sent,” he said.
The minister attributed the communication breakdown to the transfer of a desk officer responsible for receiving correspondence from the National Assembly. He said he had directed officials to investigate why the letters were not acted upon.
Alausa acknowledged the legislature’s constitutional responsibility to scrutinise executive programmes and pledged improved communication and cooperation with the committee.
Following an executive session with the minister and ministry officials, Laguda described the engagement as productive, expressing satisfaction with the explanations provided.
“Our meeting was progressive and purposeful. We are satisfied and, like I said, we will be moving forward and having better engagements,” he said.
1.4 Million Applicants, Limited Training Capacity
Providing details of the programme, Alausa said the administration of President Bola Tinubu had revived technical and vocational education as part of efforts to tackle unemployment and address Nigeria’s shortage of skilled workers.
“Before this president came in, technical and vocational education was almost totally dissipated in our country. But I can tell you, in a short three years, we’ve brought that back,” he said.
According to the minister, the first TVET enrolment exercise attracted about 1.3 million applicants, while the second received nearly 1.4 million applications.
He said the government had been unable to accommodate all applicants because of limited funding and the capacity of available training centres.
To improve the quality of training, the ministry has reduced the number of trades covered by the programme from nearly 60 to about 22 priority areas, including fashion design, solar photovoltaic installation, electrical installation and plumbing.
Alausa explained that the monthly payments to trainees and training centres were designed to encourage participation while enabling institutions to engage qualified instructors, acquire modern equipment and improve their facilities.
Government Targets Jobs, Entrepreneurship
Beyond providing technical skills, the minister said the government was working to connect beneficiaries with employment opportunities and support those seeking to establish their own businesses.
He disclosed that a job portal had been developed to enable trainees to upload their résumés and connect with employers looking for workers with relevant technical competencies.
The ministry is also collaborating with the Bank of Industry to support beneficiaries interested in starting businesses.
“We don’t just want them to be job seekers. We want them to be micro-entrepreneurs and do business themselves,” Alausa said.
On access to technical education, he said the Federal Government had made education free in all federal technical colleges and one selected state technical college in each state, with the government covering tuition and other school fees under the arrangement.
He added that the ministry was working with institutions in Singapore to strengthen the capacity of teachers and lecturers in technical colleges and polytechnics, with a focus on improving teaching standards and practical instruction.
The minister said the government was also pursuing a private sector-led TVET system in which businesses would play a greater role in skills development and employment, while the public sector would provide funding, regulation and an enabling environment.
The committee’s intervention underscores the importance of legislative scrutiny in ensuring that the TVET programme delivers measurable results, particularly amid high demand for skills training and constraints on available resources.
With hundreds of thousands of Nigerians already enrolled and millions seeking admission, lawmakers are expected to continue engaging the ministry to obtain implementation details and assess the programme’s effectiveness in equipping beneficiaries with employable skills, promoting entrepreneurship and addressing labour market demands.
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