Concerned by the low quality training of engineers in the country, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has adopted the Outcome Based Education (OBE) curriculum for the training of new sets of engineers, to boost their employability worldwide.
Registrar of COREN, Prof. Joseph Odigure, stated this in an address at a regional train-the-trainer workshop for the implementation of the OBE in Benin, on Wednesday.
He said the aim was to improve the quality of trained engineers, to enable Nigeria become a major player in global engineering activities such as the Washington Accord, which had only South Africa in the 22-member accord.
“As a regulator, we felt it was extremely important to develop a curriculum that is market driven.
Looking at the pedagogy of the delivery of our curriculum, one of the key aspects was to introduce the OBE in engineering in our universities, polytechnics and technical colleges.
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“OBE engineering education hinges on three basic parameters; knowledge, skill and character. We require character to drive development, we require character to know what is required of us,” he said.
In November 2015, COREN applied to become a member of the Federation of Engineering Institutions of Asia and the Pacific (FEIAP) and was accepted at its General Assembly in Perth 2016.
Odigure said such membership required COREN programmes to implement the OBE curricula.
In 2018, COREN began the process of the application for the provisional signatory status of the Washington Accord (WA) under the International Engineering Alliance (IEA).
“Based on this, the Council inaugurated a committee to develop the framework for Outcome-Based Education (OBE) in Nigerian Engineering Programmes, with the production of the Accreditation Manual as part of the terms of reference.
“The new COREN Accreditation manual consists of four chapters and seventeen annexes to guide engineering programmes in planning, developing, implementing, reviewing the OBE system and its continuous quality improvements.
“These practices make the COREN accreditation visit an accommodating experience, rather than a stressful exercise as considered by some institutions,” Odigure said.
He said 12 schools were targeted in the South-South region and that the same training had been held in the North central and would be replicated in the remaining four regions of the country.
(NAN)
