Dr Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, has urged Nigerian universities to be agents of community development rather than running all-comers’ programmes.
Saraki, gave the advice while delivering goodwill message at the ongoing, three-day, 3rd Biennial Conference of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Nigerian universities in Abuja.
He was represented by Sen. Jubril Barawo, Chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Education. Saraki said in the past, Nigerian universities were known to have experts in certain programmes, adding that this is no longer the case.
“Today, it is a different scenario, as many Nigerian universities want to run all programmes from university teaching hospital to having a nuclear department.”
This development, he said, had paved way for influx of unprepared students many of who could not address their special needs.
“There is, therefore, the need for Nigerian universities to change from being conventional sources of graduates to becoming engines of community development.
“Nigeria needs a new generation of universities that can serve as engines of community development and social renewal,’’ Saraki said.
He said that fundamental reforms would be needed in the curriculum design of the universities to boost their efforts in proffering lasting solution to the nation’s economic social and environmental challenges.
Saraki urged the committee to look into some other unwholesome practices by some lecturers who took delight in taking up multiple appointments or full time employment in more than one university.
This among others, he said, accounted for the reduction in the quality of graduates, as a result of lack of adequate supervision by lecturers.
He, however, called for an end to labour disputes in the higher institutions to check strikes, adding that better funding would make them relevant “in the ever-competitive contemporary education.’’
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, identified resource constraints as one of the challenges facing the universities.
He, however, called on the university authorities to manage the available resources at their disposal effectively and efficiently to achieve their aims and objectives.
Adamu’s massage was tagged: “The Journey so far and the Future; The Ministerial Strategic Plan for Higher Education’’.
The minister was represented at the occasion by Hajia Fatima Gidum, Director, Tertiary Education in the ministry.
Adamu urged the conference to come up with a framework for the funding of tertiary education and augment the statutory resources.
The conference, with theme, “Sustainable Tertiary Education in a Harsh Economic Environment”, will end on Thursday.
Mr. Usman Dutse, the President, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, has advised the Federal Government to give more attention to Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in tertiary institutions.
Dutse made this known on Wednesday in Lagos that funding challenges and inadequate policy framework were affecting the implementation of TVET in schools.
He also said challenges in the area of technical education had contributed to the high level of unemployment in the country.
“Technical and vocational training is one of the solutions to the challenges we are facing in the country.
“TVET provides opportunity for youths to acquire skills they can apply practically and become self employed,’’ the union president said.
According to him, it is only through diversification and application of appropriate technical skills that the nation’s economy can be diversified and internalised.
“We need skills in mining, agriculture and industries.
“Technical and vocational training in these key areas of endeavour can take our country out of the economy recession.’’
Dutse urged government to commit more resources to technical education.
He observed that low enrolment of students in polytechnics and colleges of technology had affected technical education and production of skilled manpower.
The federal government had promised to invest in technical education to build the requisite human capital base for a competitive economy.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, at a national workshop on technical and vocational training in Nigeria, had reiterated the federal government’s resolve to place emphasis on the area.
“The Nigerian education system has an important role to play in actualizing government’s desire to nurture and develop the requisite human capital base for a globally-competitive economy.
“This informs the emphasis the present administration has placed on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education.
“We will continue to invest and promote this form of education to encourage job creation and employment generation.
“As a nation, we must face the reality that education today has to be functional, in the sense that it must be structured to meet the requirements for the growth and development of the nation.
“Education must be purpose-driven toward the development of the individual. This what technical and vocational education guarantees and we will continue to focus on that,’’ he had said.
The minister had promised that an enabling environment would be created in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education for pragmatic private sector involvement.
Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, on Thursday brokered a two-week deadline for the Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to settle three outstanding issues.
Three issues out eight are said to be outstanding.
The resolution of the three issues would avert a nation wide strike planned by ASUU.
Saraki personally participated in resumed negotiation between the Federal Ministry of Education and the leadership of ASUU held at the National Assembly on Thursday.
Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu also took part in the negotiation.
The three outstanding issues yet to be resolved are “Earned Allowances” which ASUU is asking to be paid to its members.
The Federal Government however said that N30 billion had already been paid for the purpose.
The government delegation to the meeting was said to have insisted that the audit of the usage of N30billion should be made before further fund are released.
At their last meeting, the Senate Education Committee suggested that the government should give universities N1.5 billion monthly which ASUU rejected on the basis that the amount is too meagre.
Another issue the meeting failed to resolve was paying of the salaries and allowances of the staff of university primary schools.
The payment of 15 per cent of the education budget for each year to the University Education Committees, is another issue in contention.
A source said that the Minister of Education Adamu, assured that the issues would be resolved in three days.
Adamu was also said to have said that if the issues were resolved there may not be need to come to the Senate again.
ASUU President, Biodun Ogunyemi thanked Saraki and the Senate committee on Education for their intervention assured that the three outstanding issues would be resolved within three days.
It was also learnt that issues for resolution rose from six to eight because some of the issues had to be broken into subsets.
Presently, it looks like the harvest from investment in education is a long-term one, a people desperate for relief from socio-economic hardship are unlikely to wait on; just as a government looking for low-hanging fruits to assuage the feeling of the people may be unlikely to adopt it as an early option.
That was the scenario in which Education Minister Mallam Adamu Adamu recently presented a Roadmap for the transformation an underused sector, which should be a critical success factor for sustainable national development. Yet, we cannot run away from a growing world-wide acceptance of the vital role of education.
Messrs E. Orji Kingdom and Job Maekae elaborated on this in their paper, “The Role of Education in National Development: The Nigerian Experience,” in the European Scientific Journal.
“A nation develops in relation to its achievement in education,” they noted. “This explains why contemporary world attention has focused on education as an instrument of launching nations into the world of science and technology and with consequential hope of human advancement in terms of living conditions and development of the environment.
“This is because, education, in the life of a nation, is the live wire of its industries and also the foundation of moral regeneration and revival of its people. It is also the force and bulwark of any nation’s defence and it has been observed that no nation rises above the level of its education. Seeing education in this perspective calls for proper funding from federal, state and local governments to make the sector produce the desired results which will stimulate national development.”
All that and more is what Education Minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu seeks to achieve, even when the Federal Government’s 2016 budget allocated only eight per cent to the education sector against the stipulated 26 per cent approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the sector.
Presenting a draft Roadmap of the Ministry – Education for Change: A Ministerial Strategic Plan (2016-2019) – recently, he agreed that “No nation can achieve economic prosperity without a sound and functional education system.”
That “Education is at the heart of all national development efforts; and, in recognizing that, the Muhammadu Buhari Administration believes that Nigeria’s education system must prepare its children for responsibilities of citizenship and national development.”
Every good roadmap provides a clear situation report (where we are) which the document has done. The picture looks relatively bad, but not unmindful of the challenges it faces, Mallam Adamu, described by some observers as a minister with a steely willpower, assured that, “The ministry of Education under my stewardship will confront these problems with all the seriousness, commitment and strong political will to ensure that we address them once and for all.
Allowing these problems to persist is akin to surrendering the fate of our country to ignorance; we cannot afford to do that.”
Where we are:
Child Education
About 25.3 million students at all levels of education are out- of- school in the country.
With 11.4 million out-of-school children, Nigeria has the highest out-of-school children in the world.
More than 50 per cent of in-school children are not learning because they cannot read or write.
About 63 per cent of children who live in rural areas cannot read at all.
Around 84 per cent of children in the lowest economic quartile cannot read at all.
There is inadequate teacher training and support.
Proliferation of unregulated non-state schools.
Near absence of reliable data to support education administration and planning.
Lack of support for girl-child education.
Teacher Quality
The minister said the teaching profession had declined and there was need to ensure professionalism to improve the quality of education.
The quality of teachers produced by teacher education institutions and their classroom performance are generally unsatisfactory. For example, about 44 per cent of primary school teachers in the country are unqualified as they do not possess the prescribed minimum teaching qualification (NCE) for teaching.
Mallam Adamu said, “Teacher education itself is dying simply because non-professionals have now become teachers.
“Therefore, the professionalisation and registration of teachers will help make sure that the profession is reorganised with quacks kicked out.”
“So nobody should be employed as a teacher if he or she does not have a teaching qualification; there is no magic if you are not qualified as a teacher: you cannot teach.”
According to the Minister, teaching qualification means the person has undergone the course of philosophy of education and the method of teaching.
Adult Literacy
The document notes that despite various attempts to drastically reduce mass illiteracy in Nigeria, adult illiteracy levels in Nigeria is at about 57 per cent, and there are chances that the about 10 million school-age Nigerian children who are currently out of school would join the adult illiteracy population if care is not taken.
Basic and Secondary Education Curriculum
The situation analysis in the Roadmap shows there is a lot of work to be done to bring it to acceptable global standards
Technical and Vocational Education and Training
Although countries such as India, Brazil and Singapore have used this platform for technological advancement and economic boom, the document admits that the state of technical education in Nigeria shows an urgent need of repositioning to yield similar benefits.
Tertiary Education
The Roadmap shows that in addition to bringing this equally vital stage of education up to speed, there is an urgent need to address the ‘crisis’ at the point of access – a bottleneck which allows only 17 per cent of those qualified to and seeking placement in public universities to be admitted. It also identified “equity” as a problem that requires attention. As a result of these, there has been a proliferation of states and private universities, some of which people describe as glorified secondary schools.
A Test of Courage
It is in the face of these and other challenges that the Roadmap is seen as a courageous attempt to uplift the overall level of education. Indeed, the strategic plan was built on 9 pillars, based on the core strategic and measurable goals that need to be attained. For each of them, there are clearly defined objectives as well as strategies for their achievement. The pillars are:
Addressing the out- of- school children phenomenon;
Strengthening basic and secondary school education;
Teacher education, capacity building and professional development;
Adult literacy and special needs education;
Education data and planning;
Curriculum and benchmark minimum academic standard
Technical and vocational education and training;
Quality and access in higher education; and
E-learning
The added beauty of the strategic plan is the detailed action plan for each broad challenge, with clear targets, action parties and timelines.
Adamu, however, made it clear that the draft Roadmap is “not complete, rather it is meant to stimulate a robust critique. Through our collective efforts, we can translate this written document to become the `change on ground’ that we are all waiting for.”
He also stated that at the end of the critique meeting by all stakeholders, a finalised document would be presented to the National Council of Education for approval and endorsement.
Urging for all hands to be on deck for a successful plan implementation, he reiterated that it is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to address the challenges and salvage the system to return education to the path of excellence, enjoining them to own and implement the plan.
“No doubt, the successful implementation of any plan requires concerted effort by all levels of government, stakeholders, community leaders, religious leaders, civil society organisations, development partners and the media,” Mallam Adamu said.
But some stakeholders have been quick to recall how factors like funding, political distraction and bottlenecks, sectoral competition for scarce resources, corruption by key stakeholders and policy discontinuity interplay to derail lovely strategic plans for development in the country.
Added to this basket of challenges is the need for the states and local councils to not only understand the urgency of the plan, but to discharge their responsibilities with the passion of all other key stakeholders. With some states unable to pay salaries, causing teacher-frustration, and frequent strikes at various levels, some of the challenges look a bit more complicated.
All those add to the test of the steely will and determination of Mallam Adamu Adamu and his team. But the country has only one way to go – to join other countries, including her contemporaries, which showcase education as a key success factor in national development. As pointed out earlier, “no nation rises above the level of its education.”
The Federal Government on Monday said it plans to enroll about 2. 9 million pupils annually in four years to reduce the figure of out-of-school children in Nigeria.
Nigeria currently has the highest number of out of school children in the world with 11. 4 million out–of–school children out of the 20 million worldwide.
The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, said 60 per cent of the 11.4 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls.
Adamu, who said this at the presentation of “Education for change,” a Ministerial Strategic Plan (2016-2019) to stakeholders in Abuja, said only 3.1 million or 17 per cent nomadic children of school-age had access to basic education despite decades of intervention.
He therefore said government would urgently raise the national Net Enrollment Rate (NER) to ensure that all out-of-school children are enrolled in basic education schools in the next four years.
The minister said: “Nigeria has the highest number of out of school children in the world with 11. 4 million out- of-school children of the 20 million worldwide.
These include the girl-child, Almajiri-child, children of nomadic pastoralists and migrant fishermen and more recently the children displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.
“60 per cent of the 11.4 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are girls. Only a fraction (17 per cent) of the 3.1 million nomadic children of school-age has access to basic education despite decades of intervention. Similarly, only a small proportion of the FME’s 20120 estimate of 9.5 million Almajiri children have access to any form of basic education.”
President Muhammadu Buhari with L-R: Assistant Director General Africa Mr Firmin Edouard Matoko, Permanent Delegation of Nigeria to UNESCO Mrs Mariam Katagum, Director General UNESCO Mrs Irina Bokova and Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu at the State House
The Federal Government on Thursday called on the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to include the development of teacher education among its programmes to be undertaken in the country.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, made the call in Abuja while receiving the UNESCO Director – General, Ms Irina Bokova, who is on a three day official visit to Nigeria.
The minister, who appreciated the impact of UNESCO especially in the areas of mass literacy and vitalization of Nigerian youths, pledged the government’s commitment towards deepening the existing relationship with the organization in its areas of engagements.
Adamu said: “We appreciate what UNESCO has been doing since you became director general. We are very happy with UNESCO and I will like to assure you of the commitment of the federal government.
“We will like to appreciate what you have been doing especially in all the areas that you are engaged in vitalizing the youths, adult education and mass literacy.
“The teacher development programme is particular to us because from the ministry here we now have an action plan. The teachers’ development is one of the strongest. So I hope the new engagement we are going to get with the UNESCO will include development of teacher education.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) said the quality of tertiary education in the country could improve if the institutions are allowed to regulate their students’ admission process.
The union’s National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Lagos that if that was done, the quality of education would improve.
Oguyemi spoke against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s decision to come up with a uniform guideline for admission of candidates for the 2016/2017 academic session.
The Minster of Education, Adamu Adamu, had at a recent joint policy meeting to decide the cut off mark for students seeking admission into the universities, announced the scrapping of post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Post UTME is the second stage of screening usually conducted by universities for the final selection of candidates into the institutions.
Adamu had said in a statement that he would sanction any university or tertiary institution found conducting examinations under any guise to admit students.
He further directed tertiary institutions that had collected money from candidates for such purposes to immediately refund it or face appropriate sanctions.
The minister said if any tertiary institution had already conducted any form of examination, such an exercise stood annulled.
The ASUU chief told NAN that such directive encroached on the autonomy of the institutions.
“I think government should give these institutions the chance to regulate themselves.
“They should decide for themselves, the process they dim fit to admit their students.
“The Senate of universities for example, should decide on the process they want to use in selecting candidates.
“We do not think it’s right for government to decide the method of screening of the candidates, indeed, we want to attain some level of sanity and quality in the system,’’ he said.
The Nigerian factor is on the prowl again, and, as usual, it is hounding another golden opportunity to change the fouled fortunes of Nigeria for the better! This time, the appointment of Adamu Adamu as Minister of Education has curiously shifted the focus from the chronic challenges bedevilling the nation’s all-important education sector to the puerile and forgone issue of the appointee’s competence. So they ask: “Will Adamu deliver?”
Even the question implies that Adamu Adamu can deliver, reducing the supposedly ‘academic’ and ‘professional’ concerns of the critics to sickening sentiments. Interestingly, their seemingly sectional outbursts were pre-empted and eventually drowned by the spontaneous celebration of the mega-ministry’s more enthusiastic staff, thus passing a vibrant verdict on the competence and capacity of Adamu Adamu.
The ridiculous premise for the ‘academic’ ambush and ‘professional’ persecution of the accountant-turned-journalist-turned prolific and perceptive public policy analyst is again spotlighted by the historical fact that a majority of the 55 education ministers Nigeria has had since independence flaunted educational backgrounds as veritable rights of occupancy of the portfolio. But the current pathetic state of education in the country casts a doubtful, if not dubious, shadow on their collective competence and capacity in their acclaimed comfort zone.
Less skewed academic or even professional review of the status quo in the education sector will lend more credence to the rationale and relevance of the circumspective analytic insights of the accomplished socio-political columnist into the hydra-headed harbingers of the ‘rot’ plaguing the education sector over and above the bookish blinkers of ivory tower ‘experts’. There is no denying that virtually every ‘educated’ Nigerian will be just as familiar with the notorious inadequacies and entrenched policy and implementation paralysis which characterise education at all levels and all over the country.
Thus, the most profound and impactful policies and programmes currently moving the education sector forward were initiated during Obiageli Ezekwesili’s tenure at the ministry, which is no mean feat given the typically long gestation period of policy outcomes in the education sector. Coincidentally, she also was an accountant, but, with hindsight, her most distinguishing, effective and widely-acclaimed attributes were intelligent assessment of challenges and corrective measures, insistence on timely and strict execution of policies and prudent and accountable implementation of programmes and projects while diligently motivating staff of the ministry. Candidly, the same cannot be said of the Okebukolas and the Osujis whose professed academic and professional prowess sank to abysmal depths, seemingly sucked into the whirlpool of administrative lethargy, widespread mismanagement and undue financial processes, among other entrenched encumbrances.
Fortuitously, Adamu Adamu’s combined careers in accountancy, journalism and civic policy advocacy have been unblemished and highly appreciated, not to mention the acknowledged contribution to unbundling our Pandora’s Box of social, political, economic and attitudinal excesses and inequities courtesy of his decades of weekly wit and wisdom writings. Outside the mercifully muted ranks of his traducers, Adamu is reputed for patriotism, courage, humility, intelligence, uprightness and passion in his endeavours, all of which he will certainly deploy in his national assignment as Minister of Education.
Contrary to the cynicism of critics, President Buhari chose Adamu Adamu for such an important ministry precisely because of the trust he reposes in his sincerity and commitment, traits that are believed to be much valued by the Spartan and highly meticulous former head of state in his choice of associates and assistants. Sincerity and commitment are indeed indispensable qualities for any meaningful and effective intervention and reform of the beleaguered education sector while humility, intelligence and patriotism will enable Adamu Adamu to optimise the goodwill and wise counsel of the many accomplished educationists and technocrats he will attract with his amiable personality and irrepressible quest for knowledge and experience.
Adamu Adamu will certainly let this unique God-sent opportunity to transform his enlightened and purposeful insight and grasp of the underlying impediments to our progress and development as a people and a nation with abundant endowment and potentials into a realisable roadmap for the redemption and revitalisation of the education sector, thereby living up to the genuineness of his patriotism and intelligence. As a federal minister with the ear (and heart) of the President, Nigerians look forward to a glorious era for education in Nigeria whereby the sector most critical to national progress and development will take its rightful place as top priority of government and rise to play a radical role in overcoming its seemingly intractable challenges. He owes this to future generations of Nigerians who may otherwise not remember his tenure.
It is high time the Federal Government extricated itself from state and local government-sourced afflictions on its otherwise justified, humongous and transformative intervention in the basic education sector, which has for too long been hamstrung by its concurrent classification. A situation that enables and even encourages states and local governments to callously dilly-dally and ultimately subvert substantial federal intervention funding of the basic education sector must no longer be condoned. The Federal Government can only set the pace and boost development of the basic education sector by assuming total responsibility for the timely and prudent implementation of its intervention, especially in the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Programme.
Pointers for a roadmap:
Securing budget pre-eminence for education and state and federal levels.
The Basic Education Programme of the Federal Government must decisively shake off the shackles of state and local government impunity and ineptitude in meeting their obligations. The key issue is the fate of the huge budget allocations from the Federal Reserve annually set aside through UBEC for federal intervention in states and local governments. From initially releasing the funds to states, to imposing several conditions precedent to the release of counterpart funds, virtually all measures to safeguard the funds from diversion have been circumvented by states. In the last ten years, states have generally shown a preference to access the funds than the much-needed timely and prudent execution of UBE projects in their areas. The current trend is to refuse to access the funds altogether if they cannot get them without strings attached. Meanwhile, other related projects such as teacher training and capacity building are being implemented by the Federal Government to dovetail with the projects tied to the funding which are lagging far behind or non-existent.
The Federal Government cannot sacrifice its constitutional role and responsibility for UBE on the altar of state sabotage. On one hand, the FG has a duty to ensure that its policies and programmes are duly implemented across the country. On the other, it cannot look the other way while states willfully abdicate their responsibilities or brazenly divert allocated funds to their own use/abuse. All constitutional and other administrative and legal avenues to removing these anomalies must be vigorously pursued by the FG and there should be no mistake about the resolve of the FG. Options include Direct Intervention of FG in implementing UBE in states and local governments by getting FG funds directly released to schools and projects implemented by schools under close supervision of School-Based Management Committee of Teachers, Parents, Civil Society and Community Leaders (SBMCs). The status of the envisaged autonomy of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) from Executive manipulation which has been seriously compromised as SUBEB chairmen have become directly answerable to governors and beyond the control of education commissioners as well as the brazen diversion of FG Intervention funds to miscellaneous purposes should also be thoroughly addressed. This will be a major vista of change that the Presidency can proudly marshal.
The ‘orphaned’ status of secondary schools should be decisively resolved in favour of bringing them under regulatory monitoring and supervision by UBEC as its regulatory agency.
These and other related issues pertaining to the Federal Government’s concurrent involvement in basic education sector and the new resolve of the Presidency to get out of the hostage situation should be top on the agenda for unveiling the new policy thrust to states and LGs at the Hon. Minister’s first meeting and interactive session with SUBEB chairmen and education commissioners. The interactive session should be adequately publicised nationwide to expose the rot in the system, obtain any relevant input to the new policy from states and garner states’ consensus and public support for the new policy thrust while highlighting the corrective change initiative.
Out-of-school children and limited access to tertiary institutions.
This is another issue for similar national meeting with commissioners and SUBEB chairmen as a distinct aspect of the FG intervention in basic education. There is need to situate the problem in the national emergency bracket considering the weighty implications and alarming consequences of steadily increasing numbers of predominantly children and youth affected on national security and future development. The basic education sector new policy thrust should be extended to achieve timely, decisive and effective positive change towards realistic resolution of the national crisis. It should also be properly profiled as a nationwide problem though it is more pronounced in some northern states. So an all inclusive interactive session approach should be adopted in arriving at the appropriate policy direction. The crucial responsibility of states and LGs is also a matter of serious concern that should be decisively tackled even as FG develops an option for achieving its targets, irrespective of partnership performance capacity.
Craft and vocational/entrepreneurial education.
The curricular challenges to the desired and much delayed implementation of shift in emphasis from white collar education to functional education that equips all students with at least one proficiency in a skill or vocation with entrepreneurial relevance by the time they exit Senior Secondary. The systematic relegation and revision of Nigerian and African History in schools and tertiary curricular with deleterious effect on the national consciousness of our children and youth of their political and historical heritage requires urgent attention and concerted efforts to “format” the minds of our children and youth must be countered vehemently and effectively. The disconnect between youth development and education – twin issues that are separated at great risk to civic development of youth – deserves similar attention with a view to establishing synergy to enhance the moral and civic qualities of school leavers.
Federal Government Colleges.
The original motivation for establishing FGCs was to promote national unity and federal character in the hearts and minds of our students as part of the post-war remedial measures. While these values are still relevant and necessary for inculcation today, the zeal and commitment of the founding fathers has fizzled out of the attention and concern of the bureaucrats. To restore the founding momentum and depth of passion for national unity and cohesion as well as common national ethos through comprehensive rehabilitation and revitalisation of infrastructure and teaching and learning processes in the FGCs will also manifest a profound transformation in a model institution under the Presidency. More significantly it will rekindle the fading embers of nationalism and unity in diversity on which the nation and people depend and thrive on a sustainable and progressive basis. It will be a welcome change for the better. In addition, the curricular of the FGCs need to be revisited and further fine-tuned to enhance the nation’s ICT and digital computing standing.
Schools broadcast/FRCN network.
The challenge of greater access to learning for the teeming out of school and early child education children calls for the integration of the nation’s radio broadcast facilities into the access spectrum which still remains a major national asset for service to education all over the world. Here it has been virtually abandoned since the deliberate dismantling of the Schools Broadcast Service under the Education Ministry that was once a qualitative and highly effective supplement to the delivery of special programmes by TV and radio to all primary schools in towns and villages on a regular curricular based broadcast schedule. Today FRCN boasts of over 100 stations as does NTA, not including the national network services, suitable for airing schools broadcasts but instead devoted to disc-jockeying and Mexican soap operas. The NTI-based Teachers Radio (if on air) and National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) facilities (if any) and the surviving personnel and equipment of the Schools Broadcast Unit of the FME are the potential building blocks for a completely new national schools broadcast and distance education service that will also register as a monumental transformation and positive change in the education sector impacting on the challenge of access at basic education sector in a very significant way for the benefit of millions of poorly taught pupils across the nation in a cost effective method.
To President Muhammadu Buhari, his ministers are round pegs in round holes. Although the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, is not an educationist, the president believes he has what it takes to do the job. Educationists point the way forward for Adamu. Kofoworola Belo-Osagie, Adegunle Olugbamila, Oluwatoyin Adeleye and Frank Ikpefan report
HE bears the same first and last names – Adamu Adamu. It was a household name in the days he edited and wrote a column for the New Nigerian. Since he left the newspaper world, he has been into many other things, which he did quietly. Last week all that changed when President Muhammadu Buhari made him Minister of Education.
A non-educationist as education minister? Will he deliver? These are some of the questions being asked by educationists and other stakeholders.
• Onoja
Former principal of King’s College and Kogi State Commissioner for Education Mr Sylvester Onoja believes that the president should have given the job to an educationist.
Urging the Federal Government to treat the education ministry like its Health and Justice counterparts, Onoja said: “As a member of the Nigerian Academy of Education, I want the government to structure education like the Ministry of Health and Justice. Education has a problem and we need people who know what the problem is to do it the way they are doing it in the Ministries of Health, and Justice. Adamu Adamu, I have the privilege of knowing him. He is a good man, perfect gentleman, knowledgeable, honest and competent; a man of character. But we want somebody who knows what the problem is because the problem of this country is the problem of education. The decay in our infrastructure has to do with education; the water we drink has to do with education; health has to do with education. Therefore, we need a professional in the ministry of education so that he can hit the ground running.”
Former Minister of Education Mrs. Chinwe Obaji, however, believes that having gone to school, Adamu should be familiar with the challenges of education.
• Obaji
“I don’t see anything wrong in an accountant and a seasoned journalist handling the Federal Ministry of Education. The important thing is that he is a Nigerian and had his primary school education in Nigeria and also secondary and tertiary education, he knows the good and bad things about the education sector so I don’t see anything wrong in it at all and I know that he is going to do very well,” she said.
Prof Peter Okebukola, former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), said Adamu can handle the job if he is passionate about education, courageous and intelligent.
“For our current minister, he has a passion for education even though he does not have a qualification. And when I look at his background, he is somebody who has courage and high intellect. We have in the past too people who are not in education and they did very well,” said Okebukola.
Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) National President Michael Olukoya is adopting a wait-and-see attitude.
• Olukoya
“He should be allowed to prove himself first. Let us give him the benefit of doubt,” he said.
All Nigerian Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS) president Dr Fatima Abdulrahman also believes that Nigeria should de-emphasise paper qualification and give preference to individual’s ability to deliver.
“I think we should begin to give less concern to paper qualification at the expense of merit,” she said.
Their disposition to Adamu’s choice notwithstanding, they have set agenda for him. They hope that he would address problems at the basic, secondary, tertiary, technical/ vocational and teacher training levels of education.
To Okebukola, the most pressing problem Adamu and the minister of state, education, Prof Anthony Onwuka, should face is teacher education, which, if addressed, would cure a third of the malaise in the sector.
•Onwuka
“About 40 to 45 percent of our teachers are hopeless; that is the truth. I am not just conjecturing; I am talking based on empirical data. Over 60 per cent of teachers have a very shallow content knowledge of English, Maths, Biology – of everything. They are so poorly prepared. And the teacher, from all our studies is the variable that contributes the most to improving quality – actually – like 33 per cent. Attend to the teacher problems, and a third of the challenge is gone. So, revamping the formality of teacher education would be the way to go,” he said.
Okebukola underscored the need to improve facilities in schools and to inculcate the right values in learners.
Onoja also stressed the need for teacher training, urging the government to set the highest benchmark to attract the best brains.
“If I want to read Law, Pharmacy, I must have 180 in Jamb but if I want to be a teacher I can only have 150. Why? Teaching is a profession where only those who are interested should go. Why are we recruiting those who do not know and have no desire to know? We should address that,” he said.
Onoja called on the minister to focus on primary and secondary education, which he described as “nothing to write home about.” He advocated the establishment of a commission to manage secondary education.
“Secondary education is an orphan. On May 26, 1979, the Head of State signed the National Secondary Education Commission into law. That commission is to ensure that there was somebody in charge just like NUC is in charge of universities. We need a body to be in charge of secondary education. Without a regulatory body, we are wasting our time. I want this present government to address the issue so that secondary education can be regulated,” he said.
Mrs Obaji wants the minister to reduce the number of school-aged children not attending school. She said the problem was compouding restiveness in the country.
She said: “We now have 10.5 million children of school age that are now out of school and that is around 30 percent in the whole world. It is a challenge; a very big one. We are talking about Boko Haram. Who are the set of people involved? Are they not the youths? You are talking about kidnapping, who are those involved? It is the youths. Look at what is happening in the East; the youths are advocating Biafra. If they were properly educated, we will not be having these social issues that we have in the country. When President Buhari wanted to visit Borno, he couldn’t get out because of the surge, the large number of youths. They don’t have a skill, they are not educated and unless we do something, Nigeria is sitting on a time bomb.”
For Otunba Oladele Olapeju, who bowed out as principal of King’s College last Saturday, if the Adamu team is able to regularise the academic calendar, he would have achieved a lot.
“The ministers should be able to sustain the calendar of the tertiary institutions. It is one of the most challenging things. That is why some of our students run to Ghana to school – not because of the quality – but because of the stability. So now I expect them to stabilise the academic calendar of tertiary institutions. I expect less labour activities from the academics; let them face academics and less of agitations,” he said.
Olukoya also expects fewer strikes under this dispensation, urging the minister to check how private schools treat teachers.
“The plight of private school teachers in this country should be addressed. They work as slaves, because the school owners are exploiting the unemployment in the country. So, he has to call them to order and ensure that they have a better working scheme for Nigerians,” he said.
Chairman University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of Non Academic Staff Union (NASU), Mr Ajibade Kehinde urged the minister to address workers’ welfare in universities.
Mrs Olusola Beckley, former Principal of St Annes School in Molete, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, called for a pluralist approach to curricula design.
“The new minister must work with various stakeholders in the drafting of the curriculum for schools and must involve practicing educationists who interact with the schools often. He must also ensure thorough monitoring of schools to make them follow the curriculum to create order and uniformity in the system,” she said.
For Collins Uwadia, Training Coordinator, Slot Skills Acquisition Centre, the way forward in education is to strengthen Technical and Vocational Education (TVE).
He advised the minister to equip technical colleges and give technical students a sense of belonging.
“I will honestly tell you that the attention on technical education is very poor. The students just want to have a sense of belonging in the society; have in mind that the government is also concerned about them. Equip their schools with laboratories; let them have tools to work with so it becomes very easy for them to learn. One thing is for you to go schools to learn a practical experience and there are no tools to train you and when you come out what do you work with?” he said.
Uwadia lamented that many graduates leave tertiary institutions without practical skills, despite studying practical-oriented courses.
He said: “That is the problem with tertiary education; those that learn any course related to hand work you find out that when they graduate they do not really know what it is; and they will start afresh to learn again. We have many graduates that come to Slot to gain practical skills about mobile phone and computer hardware repairs for six months.”
But, without the political will, nothing can be achieved.
The minister seems prepared for the task ahead. On Monday in Abuja, he spoke of plans to address challenges in primary and secondary education, saying: “When primary education is in shambles, secondary education is in tatters, there is no way that tertiary and university education can be better. And by that same token, human capital development and the production of skilled high-level manpower that is needed to drive the economy can hardly be different from what it is today.
“The core problems of education in the country, while inter-related, vary from one level of education to another. The crisis of underfunding, which gave birth to a whole series of other problems such as poor infrastructure for teaching and learning, absence of laboratory equipment for teaching and research, poor conditions of service for teachers and the menace of brain-drain from our tertiary institutions of learning to the so-called greener pastures; the crises of poor enrolment access which leave millions of school-age children roaming the streets and millions of others competing for some thousands of places in our tertiary institutions and the crisis of regulation which has turned the entire education system into a jungle where everything goes.
“It is unregulated, unsupervised and with very little or no course to ethics and professionalism, and finally, the crisis of indiscipline.”
Adamu said he has what it takes to get things done.
“The ministry of education, under my stewardship will confront these problems with all the seriousness, commitment and strong political will to ensure that we address them once and for all. Allowing these problems to persist is akin to surrendering the fate of our country to ignorance, something we cannot afford to do.”
Adamu, who hails from Bauchi State, studied Accountancy at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. A writer and public analyst, he also served as Personal Assistant to the late Solomon Lar, who was pioneer National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Governor of Plateau State.
