Thus, although the beneficiary of some minimal revisions, the technical education curricula in Anglo-Cameroon remain outdated, and contextually irrelevant. Colonial authorities tailored the specific vocations and trades to suit the goals and objectives of the colonial project. One objective was to exploit the colony and protect the economic interest of the metropole. Another was to, as much as possible, approximate Eurocentric living standards for Europeans in Africa. Accordingly, it was necessary to train technicians who could contribute towards realization of these objectives.

 

In practice, this meant endowing technicians with the skills necessary to build and maintain colonial public infrastructure. Foremost in this regard are railways, roads, bridges and wharfs that were necessary to exploit natural resources from the colonies for onward transmission to the metropole and other overseas markets. In addition, it was imperative to train technicians capable of constructing and maintaining the buildings that housed colonial officials, their offices, factories and other work places; repair the cars and other machinery required for the colonial project. Thus, the goal was never to train technicians capable of meaningfully contributing towards the realization of development goals in an emerging economy such as Cameroon.

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…Technical education, especially when it is flexible and innovative, constitutes an ef ective tool for ensuring that technical school students acquire the skills most urgently needed in the job market at any given time

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ROLE OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

It is difficult to overstate the value of technical education as a component in the engine of development in emerging economies. At least eight crucial functions of this genre of education in developing economies such as Cameroon readily come to mind. These include its ability to:

⮚ Equip individuals with practical know-how;

⮚ Groom entrepreneurs and create jobs;

⮚ Promote economic diversity;

⮚ Enhance productivity and competitiveness;

⮚ Bridge the skills lacuna;

⮚ Increase the ranks of the middle-class;

⮚ Address infrastructure deficiencies; and

⮚ Encourage regional connectivity and collaboration.

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A Tool for Equipping Individuals with Practical Know-How. In its most basic form, technical education is capable of not only meeting the workforce demands of an emerging economy but endowing individual learners with practical skills and knowledge. These are necessary as direct inputs to specific industries and sectors

An Instrument of Entrepreneurial Development and Job Creation. The ability of technical education to promote entrepreneurial development and create jobs flows from its proficiency as a mechanism for endowing learners with usable knowledge and skills. In the context of emerging economies, the opportunities for new business start-ups are vast and waiting to be exploited. When this happens, it is safe to conclude that technical education possesses the ability to foster a culture of innovation, creativity and self-employment. By so doing, it contributes significantly to efforts to reduce unemployment the economy.

A Device for Promoting Economic Diversity. Additionally, technical education is an effective tool for economic diversification because it can enable a developing economy to move beyond traditional sectors and explore new emerging industries such as technology, renewable energy, manufacturing, and healthcare.

A Mechanism for Enhancing Productivity and Competitiveness. Also, technical education is capable of enhancing productivity and competitiveness. This is because technical education endows students with specialized knowledge and practical skills that enable them to be more productive and efficient in the execution of assigned tasks.

A Tool for Bridging the Skills and Job Lacuna. Technical education, especially when it is flexible and innovative, constitutes an effective tool for ensuring that technical school students acquire the skills most urgently needed in the job market at any given time. It can accomplish this feat by providing training in specific trades and professions, depending on the needs of the industries. Thus, such an education can re-order the skills set of a workforce to suit the needs of the job market in general. Doing so can also address the skill mismatch problem—that is, the incongruity between job requirements and available skills—that is a defining feature of emerging economies.

An Effective Tool for Increasing the Ranks of the Middle-Class. Technical education is also well-known as a tool for facilitating mobility from low- to middle-income. This is because of its ability to empower low-income individuals by endowing them with economically rewarding skills and know-how that can catapult them into the middle-income strata of society.

An Instrument for Addressing Infrastructure Deficiencies. Technical education also possesses the capacity to help meet infrastructure needs in, especially, emerging economies. This is possible through its inert ability to train individuals in infrastructure building and maintenance fields such as building construction, civil engineering technology, welding and metal fabrication, mechanical technology, telecommunication technology, and electrical technology among others.

A Tool for Encouraging Regional Connectivity and Collaboration. Flowing from the foregoing is the capacity to promote regional and international collaboration. Seen from this perspective, it is safe to conclude that technical education can encourage the exchange of knowledge, best practices, and partnerships with institutions and organizations from different regions and countries. Such collaboration possesses a feedback mechanism as it facilitates learning and enables the adoption of advanced technologies and methodologies across regional and international frontiers. Most importantly technical education can be viewed as a critical component in ongoing efforts to contribute towards uplifting and making emerging economies more sustainable and competitive. This is because of its ability to equip individuals with the practical skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in an evolving global environment.

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PREPARING THE TECHNICIAN FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY

A logical starting point for the cautiously prescriptive measures that I present hereunder is to appreciate the following. The content of the current technical education curriculum in the Anglo-Cameroon subsystem, most of which were inherited from the colonial era, is inherently narrow. Therefore, it is incapable of preparing students for the complexities and challenges of the workplace of the 21 st century and beyond. To meaningfully prepare learners for the 21 st century, secondary technical school programs must perforce, be capable of endowing students with the skills and knowledge required for emerging technologies and hi-tech sectors as well as rapidly evolving industries.

Given the colonial roots of extant technical education curricula, any meaningful effort to revamp must include initiatives to significantly broaden its scope. The aim, at least for a start, must be to introduce new and contextually relevant specialties, especially those designed to cater to diverse industries and sectors such as renewable energy, healthcare, digital literacy and information and communications technologies that were little-known or unknown during the colonial era.

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Briefly, a reasonable curriculum for the 21 st century secondary technical education in Anglo-Cameroon should seek to equip learners with adaptable skills, critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, entrepreneurship, and new technology literacy. This is necessary to meet the demands of a dynamic and globalized job market. More importantly, the technical education curriculum should not focus exclusively on technical skill-building. Rather, it must prioritize the development of well-rounded individuals with transferable skills, be adaptable and possess a strong foundation for both technical knowledge- building and practical application. At the same time, technical education programs must strive to incorporate local knowledges, cultural diversity, and indigenous practices. At the very least, this is necessary to foster innovation, cultural pride and sustainable development in an emerging economy such as Cameroon.