Addressing Skills Acquisition and Technical Gaps in Polytechnic Education System in Nigeria: An Overview of the Loopholes and the Way Forward

Polytechnic education by nature is a skill acquisition and technical oriented institution designed and established to train and equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge that will enable them take up the role of technicians, technical officers, instructors and mechanic/engineers among others, with well-equipped practical knowledge and technical know-how about issues and finding solutions to the problems through logical and pragmatic approach, and to make them self-reliance. These objectives has however, not been achieved in most Nigerian polytechnics owning to the fact that most of our polytechnics, lacks the required tools and equipment such as, power (electricity), poor industrial collaboration and linkages as well as inadequate qualified and competent manpower to train and equip the students with the required knowledge. The only way to achieve this is to address the loopholes and to seek and establish collaboration and linkage with industry and technical organizations that have the wherewithal to provide practical training and equip these students with the pe-requisite knowledge necessary for them to excel in their various chosen carrier. This research work explore the acts establishing polytechnic education in Nigeria, the mission and vision as well as the objectives of their existence through documentary, textbooks, periodical, internet materials, articles and government publications. This is assessed against the background of their equipment, funding, available manpower, training strategy and identifying loopholes that hinders the realization of the set objectives despite the numerous polytechnic institutions in Nigeria. It is the believe of this research work that if the necessary required training equipment needed to train and equip students are readily available , adequate funding and adequate manpower to train and retrain, motivate and encourage staff, provide enabling environment, improved condition of service, there is no doubt that polytechnic education will be in better position to provide the much needed technical manpower for our industries and organizations which will lead to overall progress and development in our society