THE nation's premier technical institution, Yaba College of Technology, Tuesday, began a two-day workshop on strategic planning in a bid to streamline programmes, costs and personnel with emerging realities.

Consultant to the workshop and Director-General, Nigeria Institute of Management, Dr. Ben Nwaochei, said that the staff of the institution must respond to changes and challenges in our environment. He said the changes taking place include the fact that information and communication technology has changed the way we do business. Dr. Nwaochei also noted that there is a need to review the curricular in our institutions to make them more relevant. As he puts it, "Entrepreneurship, the management of small-scale business, privatisation, information and communication technology are areas which should be seeded back into our curricular to make them more relevant."

He added that most tertiary institutions have not responded to the needs of their stakeholders. This should be corrected, he argued.

He called on the institution to narrow the gap between students involvement in technology-based programmes and business and accounting courses. "As a college of technology, your core mandate is the production of technologists and technicians."

The chairman, Governing Council of the college, Mr. Oumar Shittien, called for a new orientation among all staff. He noted that Yaba Tech as the nation's first technical institute cannot afford to be left behind in the race for knowledge acquisition, information and communication technology and innovations in manpower training and development. Alhaji Shittien disclosed that the council is determined to implement the recommendations of the workshop. The college Rector, Mr. Felix Owoso, traced the history and circumstances leading to the workshop. He said the council at its inaugural meeting in October 2000 made it clear that its goal is the transformation of Yaba College of Technology to a totally Information and Communication Technology compliant institution. His words: "At that inaugural council meeting, the chairman stressed very firmly that the products of this institution will soon become the best of its kind in Nigeria. Furthermore at the inception of this administration in December last year, we sat down and planned about the challenges that confront us as the oldest technical training institution. We wanted to know what we needed. So we have interacted with all the stakeholders to know what we required to move the institution forward. And the confluence of circumstances and actions such as the National Summit on Higher Education in March this year also guided us about the way forward. So all these happenings make us to conclude that a workshop of this nature will afford the various departments an opportunity to come up with their own vision of which direction the college should go."

A representative of the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. J. Okon, assured the council and the staff that the Federal Government is ready to assist the college to achieve its corporate objectives.