The Federal Government has pledged to close the gender gap currently experienced in the National Business and Technical Examinations.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, said this during the monitoring of the examinations conducted by the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), in Abuja on Wednesday.

Mamman said that the ministry was introducing skills programmes in schools from basic to tertiary education, noting that schools would be bound to implement the programmes.

“We have a lot of policies and measures to foster female participation in technical courses.

“I have been in the university and I know how the numbers are growing rapidly in engineering, environmental sciences, medical and allied courses, the ladies are practically taking over .

“For us in the ministry, there are programmes already in place that is supporting the boasting of female education and I believe in no distance time we will see overall parity closing completely.

“Once the skill programme is adopted, all schools will be bound to implement it and it’s going to be a game changer,” he said.

He encouraged students to take up skills programme, so as to address the problems of quality and employment.

He explained that once students were able to acquire skills, they would be ready for absorption by employers of labour.

He also assured the students that the challenge of funding their university education was over, urging then to take advantage of the newly introduced scholarship scheme of the government to finance their education.

On her part, the Registrar of NABTEB, Prof. Ifeoma Isiugo-Abanihe, said that societal attitude was the bane of low female participation in technical education.

Isiugo-Abanihe said that there had been enlightenment programmes going on, stressing the importance of skills as top priority in building the country’s middle manpower.

She, therefore, said that there was a slight increase in the number of candidates that registered for the exams as 67,751candidate took part in the 2024 conduct .

“It is the societal attitude, we don’t have as many girls as you are seeing here. In this school, you have over 100 boys and 31 girls.

“There is gender gap in the percentage of female participation in technical schools but it’s coming up.

“What we are seeing today is not what we used to see before.

“The female lady mechanics and the rest were not there before, so I am hopeful that there is going to be improvement,” she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the examination, which was monitored at the Federal Science and Technical College, Garki began on June 24, and expected to end on July 29, 2024.(NAN)