“Regular and professional audit of funds, and involvement of end users in award of contracts and validation of project deliveries will check fraud and end the phenomenon of uncompleted or poorly executed projects.”
It ought to serve as the lubricant for upward economic mobility. The importance of education to any nation cannot be over emphasised. It was in recognition of this that the international community and governments all over the world have made commitments for citizens to have access to education.
The country still has over 10 million out-of-school children. That’s the highest in the world. Another 27 million children in school are performing very poorly. Millions of Nigerians are half-educated, and over 60 million – or 30 per cent are illiterates. In the area of basic education, while the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme under the ministry of humanitarian affairs has been able to shore up schools’ enrolment, Nigeria still has the highest number of out-of-school children. The global COVID-19 pandemic resulting in schools’ closure has also exposed our unpreparedness for online teaching and learning.
While those investments are critical, it is important to know that it is not enough to simply enrol children in school. Policies must go much further to ensure that children learn while they are in school. It is encouraging to note that the Universal Basic Education road map for the 2015 – 2020 strategy period lists as a policy goal, the need to “ensure the acquisition of appropriate levels of literacy, numeracy, manipulative, communicative, and life skills needed for laying a solid foundation for life-long learning.”
Often, the biggest crisis in Nigeria’s education sector is with the tertiary system. One of the most pressing problems for the country’s higher education system remains the severe underfunding of its universities. Another key challenge is academic corruption and fraud. Nigeria’s education sector is particularly vulnerable to corruption. As scholar Ararat Osipitan noted, “limited access to education in Nigeria has no doubt contributed to the use of bribes and personal connections to gain coveted places at universities, with some admissions officials reportedly working with agents to obtain bribes from students.
Nonetheless, he said the establishment of more tertiary institutions as well as the review and partial implementation of the NHGSFP within the period are some of the high points of the present administration. To achieve a positive turnaround in the sector in the next three years, Prof Adeyemi said government must fully implement the principle of autonomy as entrenched in the article currently establishing the governing council of each institution and to decentralise the various national labour unions in our institutions, while all negotiations should begin and end with each council.
“There must be a master research policy and plan of government that lays priority on funding of research outputs that have industrial relevance with direct positive effects on the socio-economic transformation of the country, which should attract about seventy per cent of the available funds for research.
“Government should see to it that funds are provided to put in place the necessary facilities not only in tertiary institutions but also in primary and secondary schools. This is a project that should cut across all segments of governance, that is federal, state and local governments. “In essence, vocational schools, trade centres and technical colleges must be upgraded and made more functional and professional. Related to this is the nomadic education which should be resuscitated.
“Industrial relations crisis in the higher education sub-sector has not abated. Indeed, the issue of the migration of teaching and non-teaching staff of tertiary education to the IPPIS platform has led to the ongoing strike by the association of university lecturers, ASUU. For the needed change in the sector, the erudite scholar said there must be proper funding of education at all levels.
“ It is clear that the problem is more cultural and sociological than religious. The solution should therefore be more cultural and sociological than religious or political.
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