The Economic Community of West African States, in partnership with a technology firm, Skill ‘G’ Nigeria Limited, says it will train no fewer than 12,000 pupils in the sub-region on technical education and science annually.

According to a statement from ECOWAS, in order to achieve this target, the organisation held a two-day stakeholders’ meeting on education on Thursday and Friday in Abuja to draw out a road map.
The theme of the meeting was, “Better harmonisation of the educational system of the region and the development of the human capital based on knowledge economy.”

The Managing Director, Skill ‘G’ Limited, Dr Gregory Ibe, told journalists after the meeting that the firm would “design the strategies for ECOWAS technical and vocational education as well as skills improvement for employability in the region.”

He said, “ECOWAS decided to partner with us in the delivery of specialised vocational education in 15 member countries. We started this with the United Nations during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration to deepen technical education. Now it has attracted ECOWAS for adoption.

“This initiative will cover primary to tertiary education; we are looking at how to standardise certification of degrees and curricula in the sub-region. We want to multiply and give this knowledge to our pupils and students at all levels; we target 11,000 to 12,000 persons annually.”

The ECOWAS Commissioner for Education, Science and Culture, Mr Boly Hamidou, said the sub-region would harmonise education curricula with a view to improving skill acquisition.

“We want to build on technical know-how and produce entrepreneurs. We saw what the firm is doing in Nigeria and we decided to partner with it.”

According to ECOWAS, participants at the meeting were drawn from the 15 member states, the African Union, the World Bank, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, and diverse development partners.