FG to use 860 ongoing projects as training grounds for Engineers in Universities -COREN

The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) says that the Federal Government has agreed to use the 860 ongoing projects of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing as training grounds for engineers in universities.

COREN disclosed that approval had been given by the Federal Government to allow students to serve as apprentices on these ongoing projects across the country.

The council’s Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Joseph Odigure, gave the hint while speaking on the sidelines of the COREN regional train-the-trainers workshop for implementation of Outcome-Based Education in engineering programmes in Nigerian universities in Abuja.

Odigure said, “The Federal Ministry of Works, for example, has about 860 ongoing Federal Government contracts and they have agreed to use those contracts as training grounds for all universities within their catchment zones.

“We are also talking with the Federal Ministry of Education. We don’t want to see a situation where this is seen as COREN activity. So we are talking with the NUC (National Universities Commission).

“This partnership with the works ministry has already been approved by the National Council on Works. It approved that students can serve as apprentices in all Federal Government projects.”

According to him, it is not an issue of looking for approval, adding that all the university needs to do is to go to the federal controller in the state and present what they have.

COREN has already facilitated this, he said, because it has been approved by the National Council on Works comprising all 36 states in the federation.

The President, COREN, Ali Rabiu, highlighted that the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) was an approach to education that focused on specific attributes in terms of knowledge, skill and attitude that must be exhibited by the students.

“They must be measurable. The planning, process and assessment of OBE are the reverse of that associated with traditional education approaches. It is a shift from measuring input and process to include measuring the outcome,” Rabiu stated.

The President, COREN added that the OBE approach pursues the design of curriculum and teaching process that focuses on producing graduates with capabilities to meet the expectations of the stakeholders.

He noted that by implementing OBE, students are expected to be able to do more challenging tasks rather than memorise what was taught, manage projects, analyse data and make decisions based on the results.