The Federal Government has taken steps to integrate sports training programmes of the National Institute for Sports (NIS) into its Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiative, with the aim of creating more employment opportunities for young Nigerians.

The proposal emerged from a meeting between the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, and the Director-General of the NIS, Comrade Philip Shaibu.

During the engagement, the two officials explored stronger collaboration between the education and sports sectors, focusing on practical skills that can open career pathways in sports-related fields.

Alausa identified basic sports training, coaching, and sports-facility maintenance as areas that could be brought into the national TVET programme, subject to the required approvals and programme standards.

He noted that trainees could access such training through NIS centres located across eight states, with programmes of up to six months under consideration. He stressed that further consultations would be needed to finalise the implementation framework.

The minister highlighted groundskeeping, pitch maintenance, and games instruction as promising employment routes for young people. He explained that developing local expertise in these areas would help reduce reliance on foreign workers to manage and maintain sports facilities.

He also pointed to a common curricular framework already developed with the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, sports experts, the private sector, and the National Sports Commission.

The framework covers six areas: Sports and Exercise Science; Coaching and Development Science; Sports Management and Business; Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation; Sports Technology and Data Analytics; and Sports Law. It is intended to support structured sports programmes in universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, expanding options beyond traditional physical education.

Alausa linked the initiative to the broader performance of the existing TVET programme, which has trained or graduated more than 250,000 people through approximately 1,200 centres over the preceding 12 to 18 months. About 98 per cent of those centres are privately operated, and participating trainees receive a monthly stipend of ₦30,000. Incorporating sports-related skills, he said, would build on this foundation, address manpower gaps in the sports industry, and support a more sustainable sports economy.

In his remarks, Shaibu commended the minister for the ongoing education reforms and the renewed focus on technical and vocational skills. Drawing on his experience as former Deputy Governor of Edo State, he recalled an initiative in which five per cent of the continuous assessment score in primary and secondary schools was allocated to sports.

He identified the shortage of qualified games masters and certified coaches as a major constraint to grassroots sports development. Shaibu also disclosed that the NIS had expanded operations across the six geopolitical zones and graduated more than 1,000 coaches within one year. He outlined the institute’s 2025–2035 strategic plan, which aims to improve sustainability and reduce dependence on government funding, while highlighting efforts to revive coaching, fitness, and executive certificate programmes, strengthen coach certification, train groundsmen, and create career pathways for retiring athletes.

He appealed for the integration of the NIS basic training programme into the TVET framework, along with institutional support to expand training capacity.

Alausa reaffirmed the Ministry of Education’s readiness to work with the NIS and the National Sports Commission to strengthen the link between education, vocational training, and sports development. He said equipping young Nigerians with practical, industry-relevant skills remained essential to expanding employment opportunities, building local capacity, and advancing a sustainable sports sector under the Renewed Hope Agenda.