As is the norm for graduates of Nigerian universities to teach in secondary schools as part of their compulsory service year, The National Youth Service Corps has made plans to halt the posting of engineers to secondary schools and other places of primary assignment different from Engineering Institutions. The agreement was reached by the Directorate of NYSC and Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).
At the pre-inauguration stakeholders’ workshop of the 30th President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers held recently in Abuja, the President of COREN, Engineer Kashim A. Ali, said that the Council has secured an agreement with the Director General(DG) of the National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) to what he referred to as prevent the wrong training and orientation of Engineers. The Director of Mobilization of NYSC has also been notified of the new development and has made provisions necessary for the success of the policy. The COREN president said that,
“Posting engineers during their service year to places they will not benefit is depriving them the opportunity of training and by implication the country is losing. The DG of NYSC agreed with us and directed the Director of Mobilization to ensure that engineers are posted to only engineering institutions.
He went ahead to say that,
“To help him, the Director of Mobilization requested that we should assist to give them the names of engineering organizations in all the states of the federation so that when they are doing their posting they will send them to such places.”
The practice of posting graduates of every discipline to teach in schools have been a dangerous age long tradition in the Nigerian educational system that has nipped professionalism in the bud when the young graduates eventually enter the labour market.
Expertise is ranked higher than theoretical book knowledge in the labour market, and this teaching practice also leaves the graduates unprepared for the labour market.
The new policy is a very welcome development that we hope would be enforced and replicated in other disciplines apart from Engineering.
