Govt. must stop paying lip service to professional skills training– PIIT boss, Joseph Ebinum; Explains partnership with Aptech

By DAMILOLA JOLOMI

The Director of Prime Innovation Institute of Technology (PIIT), Mr. Joseph Ebinum, has said that government must stop paying lip-service to professional skills training, insisting that the refusal to take such training seriously is responsible for where the country is presently, development-wise.
He said this at the opening of the second Aptech Center, in the Lekki area of Lagos State, on Thursday, September 22, 2016. Aptech, an India-based computer education center, is a franchise under PIIT.
According to him, “the reason why Nigeria has not gone beyond this stage of development is because we still pay lip-service to professional skills training. The emphasis of government officials when they are talking about education is polytechnics and universities, where people just go, and if they are lucky, spend four years, and if not, they have extra 2-3 years and later come out with certificates that are practically useless in terms of they being able to do something meaningful for themselves.”
Ebinum stressed that the ultra-modern PIIT was set up to meet the serious need for professional skills training, pointing out that Institute was established to train people who can use the skills acquired to improve the nation’s economy.
He called on governments to invest more in professional skills training to improve the economy of the country as most European countries have done and are still doing.
“The economy can only develop if we stop paying lip-service to education and the country cannot grow if we continue with this fixation on paper qualification. If you go to most countries in Europe they all started out with skills acquisition. In countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, even Israel, you will find cottage industries that are based on people who have professional skills. They start small, but before you know it they become big and the country benefits,” he stated.
Ebinum pointed out further that the partnership between PIIT and Aptech is predicated on the fact that Aptech has the best computer education programmes in the world, hinting also at the fact that the PIIT hopes to partner with some telecommunication companies in the country to enlarge the scope of its operations.
“We will love to be in partnership with some telecommunication companies like Samsung, LG and the rest because those are places we can send our students to get wholesome experience and they are the kind of the people who can also develop Technology Park and fund it as part of their corporate social responsibility. We have not approached them yet but it’s an idea we will be looking into,” he said.