The Director General Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) Farauk Salim has reinforced his organisation’s decision to adopt international standard on educational organisations management system ISO 21001:2018 as apt thing to do at this time when the borders have been opened to all forms of trade with other African countries.
He noted that it is important that the government promote and sustain the learning institutions by ensuring that the services that are provided in schools meet the needs of learners, promote equal opportunities for all students and earn the confidence and approval of learners’ sponsors.
The SON boss, who spoke in Abuja, further revealed that SON is a full member of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), African Organisation for Standardisation ARSO, AFSEC, ITU, CODEX, ECOWAS and ARSO standards Harmonisation technical committees.
Citing the public reports from the US Embassy which put the current figure of 12,860 Nigerian students which is 33% of all African students are studying in United States of America, making Nigeria both the leading source of students from the continent and 10th largest place of origin country worldwide.
While adding that exchange study programmes are welcomed because new areas of knowledge are acquired he was quick to admit that this is the opposite when the essence of studying abroad is an outright movement of learners from our institutions due to poor quality of education services in the country.
He said, Nigeria’s education system is based on the (1)-6-3-3-4 formula. That is, one year pre-primary education, six years primary, three years junior secondary, three years senior secondary, and a minimum of four years tertiary education. Other countries like China, Germany and Ghana have successfully used this model of education before Nigeria adopted it in 1989 which is a clear indication that our educational system is not the root cause of the problem in the sector.
The DG also said the mode of delivering services; mission, visions and policies of our educational organisations are not backed up by measurable quality educational objectives. “Although we agree that our government is doing a lot to upgrade the standard in the sector, however an additional effort of adopting and establishing this international best practice will assist Nigeria to always deliver globally recognised quality services in education at all times.”