Abuja, Sept. 23, 2025 (NAN) The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, has tasked the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to collaborate in order to effectively enhance the digital services for creative media.
Idris gave the charge when the Executive Secretary of NBTE, Prof. Idris Bugaje, led a delegation from the Creative Media Sector Skill Council on a courtesy visit to him on Tuesday.
According to Idris, skill and technology development are part of the eight priority areas of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
“It is working and we believe that, with the partnership that we have with you, especially at the NBTE and the Council, we will, together, combine the necessary framework to deepen this collaboration to make available skills for our young people.
“Tinubu places a high premium on new developments, for instance, the National Education Loans Fund (NELFUND). This is one intervention by Tinubu that has helped keep over 500,000 students in school.
“On account of this policy, over N100 billion has already been disbursed; about 55 per cent of that is going into payment of their tuition fees and 45 per cent for their upkeep.
“This is remarkable. We hope that other Nigerian students will take advantage of this student loan programme. It started last year, and today we have over 500,000 students benefiting.
“I hope that the NBTE will collaborate more with NELFUND to ensure that the creative sector is also able to join and make sure that more young men and women are able to go to school.
“I want to assure you of my Ministry’s readiness to collaborate with NBTE and the Council. Together we can design to integrate occupational standard for digital services for the creative media, photography, cinematography and more, ” Idris said.
The minister said that President Tinubu’s vision for Nigeria was for a country where the creative and broadcast media workforce is like other sectors; globally competitive, nationally certified and contributes meaningfully to job creation and economic growth.
“President Tinubu will continue to ensure that our young men and womenare given the right opportunities so that they can contribute to the development of the country,” he said.
Idris narrated the progress made so far in the establishment of Category 2 of the Media Information Literacy Centre, to be hosted by the National Open University of Nigeria, as part of the UNESCO initiative.
Speaking, Bugaje lauded Idris’ effort in advancing and propagating the Renewed Hope Agenda of Tinubu.
He added that hopes were dashed in the past, stressing that today,Tinubu and Idris are renewing hopes for Nigerians.
Bugaje explained that the Board was making efforts to reinvent and re-engineer the architecture of Nigeria’s education system.
“So that we will focus it on skills in terms of content, in terms of the delivery, and even in terms of the hands-on content of our education system.
“I am very happy to observe that the participants under your ministry are doing wonderfully well in terms of informal skills training.
“You take young people from secondary schools, some with diplomas, even some with degrees, in different areas, and you put them through an informal apprenticeship system, and within a short period of time they acquire the skills, managing the cameras, managing the audio system, the content, creative content, etc.
“Unfortunately, there is no certification for them already. So this is what our collaboration is going to bring about. We are going to certify all those skills that are abundant in these different sectors.
“We are going to give them a recognised national certificate, the National Skills Qualification (NSQ), which has been admitted into the federal scheme of service last year.
“We are going to introduce quality assurance, standardisation and competences that are required for different levels. We have Level 1 to 9 in the Nigerian Skills Qualification Framework,” Bugaje said.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Council, Hajiya Fatimah Haliru, said the NSQF would strengthen TVET, enhance professionalism and unlock economic potential.
Haliru added that the first step in the human capital development would be to facilitate training on the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Assessors and Quality Assurance.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that present during the visit were the Managing Director of NAN, Malam Ali M. Ali, and his counterpart at Voice of Nigeria, Malam Jibril Ndace.
Also present were the Directors General of Radio Nigeria, Mohammed Bulama and NTA, Salihu Dembos.
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