By Olusegun Folarin
For Nigeria to thrive in the global system, greater efforts must be geared towards harnessing the country’s ethnic languages to strengthen human capital development.
A Scholar and Chief Lecturer, Department of General Studies, Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Dr Oladele Jiboku made the submission while delivering the sixth inaugural lecture entitled “Language and Communication: Two Sides Of A Coin In Human Capital Development”.
Dr Jiboku, a Director of Linkages and Affiliation at the Polytechnic advocated a policy on effective use of the country’s more than 500 ethnic languages and English as lingua franca to promote manpower training and enhance skills acquisition programmes.
The Former Dean, School of Management Studies renewed the call for the adoption of mother tongue in the teaching of science and other related subjects, noting that language and communication skills would help to sharpen the technical and professional skills of learners in technological and vocational education.
He urged the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, to make, assess and rejuvenate the technological curricular of polytechnics towards solving immediate problems.
In a remark, Rector of the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Dr Mikhail Akinde highlighted the importance of language and communication to the socio economic and political development of any nation.
Dr Akinde also described effective language and communication as crucial to the development of human capital.
Earlier, the Director, Research and Development Centre and Chairman, Inaugural Lecture Committee, Mr Cletus Okoye had explained that the lecture was imperative in the bid to imparting knowledge based research on the institution’s community.
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