COVID-19: THREATS AND THE EMERGING CHALLENGES IN REALIZING THE OBJECTIVES OF TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET) IN NIGERIA.

Abstract

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of the key drivers of national transformation and contributes to the socio-economic development of Nigeria. The sudden outburst of COVID-19 Pandemic led to significant disruption in the educational system in Nigeria. The disruption caused unprecedented gap in the teaching and learning of TVET. Hence the main thrust of this paper is to highlight the issues and challenges TVET education faced during COVID-19 Pandemic. To approach the paper, the concept and objectives of TVET, COVID-19 threat and its effects in education, the challenges as well as the opportunities for TVET in a pandemic era were also discussed. The challenges identified include unpreparedness of TVET institutions in terms of available and functional infrastructure for internet connectivity and other media platforms, readiness of lecturers and instructors in term of acquisition of basic skills for e-learning usages and adaption in pedagogies strategies, the problems of expensive data package, lack of remote skills, unfriendly learning platform were also identified as challenges among the students. It was recommended that all the stakeholders in TVET should work in synergy to improve the effectiveness of on line learning.