The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa has announced the cancellation of foreign trainings for scholars.
Alausa, who said this at the opening ceremony of a three-day conference organised by the British Council, on Tuesday in Abuja, noted that the move by the Federal Government is to allow scholars to be trained within Nigeria.
The minister said that the Federal Government would be spending substantial money in building simulation lab, as well as building and developing the country’s universities.
“We have just decided to cancelled foreign training for scholars.
“The amount of money we are spending to train one scholar abroad, we could use it to train 20 people here. We will be training everybody here.
“We will unleash capacity in our universities. We are going to be spending more money now on research, innovation, and also on welfare, both on our academics and non-academics,” he said.
READ ALSO: FG slashes allowances of foreign scholars, citing economic hardship
The minister said that the Federal Government was poised to use education to empower the youths.
“I have just spoken about the first component of our six-pillar agenda.
“The second component will be focusing heavily on technical, vocational and educational training,” he said.
He said that young Nigerians would be incentivise to go to technical college and acquire technical knowledge.
“We will pay for their tuition as a second step, and as a third step, a master craft person, when they will get their practical training, we will pay them as well.
“The curriculum will be 80 per cent practical on-the-job training and 20 per cent didactic, and as they are finishing, we will also give them entrepreneurial grants, not loan,” he said.
Speaking on education budget, he said that people only looked at the money on the budget without considering what the government spends on tertiary institutions.
The Minister noted that people just look at what is budgeted to the education ministry, but not really counting the fact that it is also funding federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Credible News.ng