CONCERNED by the skill gap in the country, the Federal Government has sought the collaboration of World Bank in the area of skills enhancement for Senior Secondary School teachers in the various 35 trade subjects in Nigeria.

Executive Secretary of National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC), Dr Benjamin Abakpa, made the call in Abuja during a courtesy visit on him by the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) led by Aisha Garba.

He revealed that the Senior Secondary School has a total of 35 trade subjects captured in the curriculum, with some of the trade subjects either having no instructor or some instructors yet to be well trained in their various fields.

According to Abakpa, the mandate of NSSEC was “to reposition Senior Secondary Education that will meet societal and global needs, and in achieving this mandate, the retraining of Senior Secondary school teachers in their various trade subjects is paramount.”

He said, “No nation can attain greatness without embracing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and Technical, Vocational Education and Training.

The Commission he stressed is working with the relevant agencies towards early teaching and training of students on the trade subjects in all Senior Secondary Schools.”

He also called on the attention of AGILE, a World Bank project, to some specific areas of interest, such as “extending their work beyond the seven States and renovation of dilapidated buildings in Senior Secondary Schools, refurbishing of laboratories, and extending their services to accommodate a boy child education.”

The leader of the delegation, Aisha Garba explained that AGILE was a World Bank project with a particular focus on improving secondary education opportunities for adolescent girls aged between 10-20 with duration of five years to accomplish its mandate.

She, however, said as a gender-based project, it would also be considering adolescent boys.

Garba said that the World Bank has other projects that were ongoing in some other States which focused on renovations of school buildings and monitoring of learning achievement in schools.

She also said that the World Bank cannot work on all the projects in the education sector, but can only complement the effort of the Government in rendering quality education to its citizens.