A group of Nigerian engineers in Scotland says all is now set to inaugurate an online training hub for local content capacity development for people in the profession in Nigeria.
A statement in Abuja by Dr. Oluseun Adediran, the Chairman of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Glasgow Branch, stated that the position was made known during the engineers pre-convention briefing.
According to him, the maiden engineering convention tagged: NSE-ENGCON Glasgow 2022, is to be held in Paisley Glasgow between July 28 and 30.
Adediran said that the programme would be the first of its kind by an international branch of the Nigerian society of engineers and was expected to feature keynote addresses centered around the theme.
He said that the event would be organized in collaboration with the Social Innovation, Leadership and Management (SILM), School of Business and Creative Industries of the University of the West of Scotland.
Adediran said that the plan for the online training was part of the group’s initiatives to support local content development in Nigeria beyond their current roles of facilitating platforms for skills acquisition for engineering personnel.
He added that the plan was meant to equip those engineers serving in technical engineering committees on power, engineering codes and standards, among others.
The statement explained that Mr Charles Okafor, the branch Secretary and convention organising committee Chairman, said the idea to host the convention was conceived two years ago.
Salifu added that the forthcoming event would serve as the beginning of a series of local-content development initiatives of the branch, geared towards developing engineering capacity and upgrading technical competence in Nigeria.
He further disclosed that plans had also been concluded for the launching of an online hub for training undergraduate and graduate students, university lecturers, and engineering practitioners in Nigeria, with relevant software skills in design and programming.
He said that the idea was to build a huge reserve of globally skilled and competent engineers who would then be linked directly to local and international industries for employment.
He said the branch held series of stakeholder meetings with key actors in the engineering sector in Nigeria, including university vice-chancellors and heads of engineering departments, industry key players, officials of the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).
Salifu said that the branch and other stakeholders have recognized that there was need to train and retrain engineers to meet the demands of local and international requirements for competent engineering personnel.
He said that the hub was expected to take off in a tiered format over the next five years and was aimed to empower Nigerian engineers to become globally competitive, alongside counterparts in India and other countries.
He added that the plan to rebuild the engineering sector would make Nigeria engineers benefit from the huge numbers of remote employment opportunities offered by a surge in the volumes of engineering tasks outsourced by companies around the world.
