Nigeria's Path to Becoming Another China: NBTE Executive Secretary's Vision
He emphasized the need to support the informal skill sector to reinvigorate Nigeria, secure a promising future for the nation's youth, generate wealth and employment, and, most significantly, achieve self-reliance in technology.
AKACHI NOEL 
In a groundbreaking statement, Professor Idris Bugaje, the Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), has articulated a vision where Nigeria can transform itself into another China by harnessing the potential of its informal skill sector.
Speaking in Kaduna at the graduation ceremony of 23 Panteka Artisans who achieved National Skills Qualification (Level 3) through Recognition of Prior Learning at the Centre for Technology Development at Kaduna Polytechnic, Professor Bugaje called for the support of both federal and state governments in realizing this ambitious goal.
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He emphasized the need to support the informal skill sector to reinvigorate Nigeria, secure a promising future for the nation's youth, generate wealth and employment, and, most significantly, achieve self-reliance in technology.
Bugaje specifically highlighted Panteka, recognized as the largest informal skills hub in Africa, with over 38,000 apprentices. He suggested that, with the right support, Panteka could play a pivotal role in reducing the country's dependence on imports and replicate the production of various agro-allied and other machinery and products currently imported from India or China.
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In his address, Professor Bugaje stated, "Panteka has now become a BRAND signifying hard work, invention, innovation, conversion of waste to wealth, employment generation, and poverty alleviation. Let's, therefore, recreate other Panteka's across our Local Governments or at least the Senatorial Districts after fully propelling up the mother Panteka to its full potential. With this, Nigeria can recolonize Europe through the export of technical skills manpower like the Indians did, and now an Indian is the British Prime Minister. Nigeria can do the same."
To support this vision, he called upon the Federal Government to establish a funding agency, the National Skills Development Fund (NSDF), dedicated to supporting the informal skills sector.
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Professor Bugaje stated that while initiatives like "Trader money" and other political interventions have limited sustainable impact, the creation of an NSDF would lead to more profound and lasting benefits.
