The study assessed economic opportunities available to vocational and technical education programmes for sustainable local content policy in the oil and gas sector in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Two (2) research objectives were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study comprised of all stakeholders in vocational and technical education and oil and gas sector in Bayelsa State. A sample of 230 respondents (180 lecturers from the vocational and technical education in the three tertiary institutions in Bayelsa State and 50 staff of Nigerian Content Monitoring and Development Board from the corporate headquarters). The instrument for data collection was an “Assessment of Economic Opportunities Available to Vocational and Technical Education Programmes Questionnaire” which was developed by researchers and validated by experts. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha Formula and a coefficient of 0.87 was obtained. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation via Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26. The findings revealed that lack of adequate local skills and expertise, Limited access to financing for local businesses, insufficient support and incentives for local businesses, limited infrastructure (power, transportation, etc.), poor enforcement of the policy regulations, insufficient efforts to provide training and capacity building programs to enhance local skills and capabilities, lack of information about available opportunities, limited access to networks or partnerships with larger corporations, stringent qualification criteria and regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles are major the challenges inhibiting the implementation of Local content policy in Bayelsa State. It was recommended that The Nigeria Content Monitoring and Development Board should continue to sponsor vocational and technical based programmes that will create the required awareness on the need for indigenous domination of the Oil and Gas Industry.
Keywords: Sustainable, economic opportunities, local content policy, oil and gas sector, vocational and technical education programmes
