Email this article Re-Engineering Social Perception of Industrial Technology Education as a Critical Tool for Technological Advancement in Africa
Abstract
The recent past has been characterised with several national/international discourse on strengthening industrial technology education (ITE) for sustainable national development and better quality livelihood. The renewed focus stems from the widely accepted UNESCO definition of ITE to include the study of technologies and related sciences, and their attested importance in attaining national development. No doubt, technologies and related sciences include Science Laboratory Technology, Industrial Physics and other Applied Science Disciplines. Though reports abound on the important roles of ITE in attaining innovative national development, other reports also indicate ITE and related programmes/technologies are not esteemed as preferred course of study in Africa, particularly Nigeria. The situation is widely noted to result largely from low social perception of ITE programmes. This paper finds this debased perception very worrisome in this age of interdisciplinary/collaborative studies and application of technical-know-how in industrial/scholarly activities. Following strong suggestions that ‘perceptions’ are critical factors in fostering and sustaining, or deterring any pursuit, a systematic narrative exploration and literature analysis were used to argue that with a continual debased societal perception of the said programmes, efforts at gaining sustainable national development through ITE and related applied sciences would hardly yield desired objectives. The paper concludes that unless there are equal determinations at social re-engineering by way of reorientation, campaigns and national policy formulations/implementation, to correct the said misconceptions and to foster transformation of the society into one where ITE programmes and its recipients are highly recognized, accepted and well remunerated, the desired national development will remain elusive.
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