How to make Nigerian Engineering students useful

Chronic underfunding is the foundational problem. Engineering faculties routinely lack the budgets needed to purchase licensed CAD and CAM software, procure CNC machines and related hardware, or maintain the equipment they already have. When machines break down — and they invariably do — universities often lack the funds, or even the local expertise, to repair them. The result: months of idle equipment and cancelled practical sessions.

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Erratic power supply compounds the problem enormously. CAD and CAM rely on computers, precision motors, and electronic controls — none of which function reliably under Nigeria’s grid conditions. Voltage fluctuations destroy circuit boards. Sudden outages corrupt software and halt CNC operations mid-process. Even where generators are available, their cost places an additional burden on already stretched departmental budgets and, sometimes, on students themselves.

Inadequate and ageing equipment means that even the institutions that do have laboratories are often working with outdated tools. A single functional machine shared among dozens of students offers minimal hands-on exposure. Imported machines present a particular challenge: spare parts are difficult to source locally, and the specialised technicians needed to service them are rare. A breakdown that might take days to fix in Germany or South Korea can leave a Nigerian university lab out of action for an entire semester.

The deficit of skilled lecturers is both a cause and a consequence of the broader decline. Many engineering academics in Nigeria were trained at a time when CAD and CAM were still emerging technologies. They have not been retrained, and without institutional support or incentives to acquire practical skills, they remain limited to teaching theory. A lecturer who has never personally used a CNC machine or run a CAD simulation cannot instil confidence or competence in students.

Finally, a poor maintenance culture accelerates the decay of whatever facilities do exist. Equipment is frequently operated without routine servicing, leading to premature failure. Because the machines are not indigenously manufactured, the knowledge base to maintain them is shallow. Engr. Ilechukwu notes: “Without routine maintenance and support, even the best lab falls apart.”

The Cost to Nigeria

The consequences of these failures are not contained within university walls. Nigeria’s 2050 industrialisation goals, its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan targets, and its ambitions across manufacturing, agro-processing, and technology all depend on a pipeline of practically skilled engineers. That pipeline is currently leaking at every joint.

Employers in Nigeria’s manufacturing and industrial sectors increasingly report that fresh engineering graduates require extensive re-training before they can contribute meaningfully to the workplace. Some multinationals operating in Nigeria import technical expertise from abroad precisely because local graduates cannot demonstrate the practical competencies they require. This is a direct consequence of the gap between curriculum and reality that Dr. Ilechukwu’s study documents.

According to the research, “We risk graduating students who know the theory but cannot actually run a machine,”

“That is not engineering. That is an expensive exercise in producing certificates.”

A Roadmap for Recovery

The study is not content merely to diagnose the crisis. It offers a concrete agenda for reform:

Government and university governing councils must ring-fence funding for engineering laboratory upgrades, treating it as a national development investment rather than a discretionary expense.

Campuses must urgently install reliable alternative power — solar systems, inverters, or industrial generators — specifically for engineering laboratories.

The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) should move beyond paper-based accreditation and conduct rigorous, unannounced physical inspections of facilities and staffing.

Engineering lecturers must be systematically retrained through industry placements, technical workshops, and international exchange programmes.

Structured university-industry partnerships should be formalised so that companies provide equipment, software licences, and industry practitioners as visiting instructors.

“This is about building an ecosystem, funding alone will not fix it. Infrastructure alone will not fix it. You need trained people, reliable power, working machines, and institutional accountability — all at the same time. Nigeria has the talent. What is lacking is the will to invest in it.”

With Nigeria’s population set to exceed 400 million by 2050, and with global manufacturing increasingly reliant on digital precision tools, the window for course correction is narrowing. The question is whether policymakers, university administrators, and industry leaders will act before another generation of engineers is lost to an education system that promises the future but delivers the past.

•Ekene Ilechukwu is a lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Department of Mechanical Engineering,Awka, Anambra State.