NACETEM Takes Tech Career Choice Awareness to Schools in Adamawa

By Hussaini Hammangabdo, Yola

The National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM) has held a career path sensitization workshop for secondary school students in Adamawa State.

The workshop taught the students to think self-employment, develop the necessary self-motivation and to take up skills that they could practice for self-sufficiency upon finishing from school.

Four resource persons taught 70 students from 14 schools how they could turn ideas into fortunes in the prevailing era of knowledge economy when science and technology rule the world. 

"Ideas fuel the pace of development, as it is no longer about depending on natural resources but how one good idea can change your world drastically," NACETEM's Head of Research in the North East Zonal Office, Engr Chinda Amos told the students. 

The one-day sensitization, conducted on the theme, 'Educational Outreach Program for Secondary Schools in Career Technology', was designed to train the participants who were senior secondary science students on how to leverage technology for self-employment rather than seek white collar jobs that rarely exist.

A lecturer at the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, Dr Abdulmalik Usman Bello who delivered a lecture entitled Career Path in Technology for Selected Senior Secondary Students, told the students, "There are many ways to make money without relying on government or big companies to give you salary jobs."

He urged the students to begin to motivate themselves right away on how to create solutions to problems and make money in the process.

On his part, Dr Alhakeem Bello, also of the African University of Science and Technology, advised the students to condition their minds against the job seeking bandwagon and seek instead to create jobs for themselves and other people by taking advantage that the evolving world of technology offers.

"Map out your own plan and be intentional about it," Alhakeem said, explaining that young scholars are called by modern exigencies to develop clear ideas, draw out short and long-term goals and be generally innovational and determined. 

"We need practical engineers who are able to create things or provide solutions to problems," he added.

Engr Chinda Amos of NACETEM who gave an overview of the Yola workshop during a press interview with our correspondent, said NACETEM, a body charged with developing Nigeria's technological manpower, found it necessary to catch the students young and teach them on ways to advance their lives after secondary school. 

"What we are sensitizing them on is careers in technology because the world is now about technology," Amos said, adding that NACETEM's capacity building programs are designed to address knowledge gaps in the country.