Akande decries failure of Nigeria’s education system

Governments at the federal and state levels in the country have been advised to review the education policy in the country, to guarantee that education contributes its quota to national development.

The plea was made at the weekend by Adeolu Akande, a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, while delivering a public lecture on The Role of Education in National Development,’ at the annual award’s day of the National Progressive Youth Forum in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Professor Akande said education as presently implemented in the country, did not guarantee development, because no country could develop faster than its educational programme could afford.

He revealed that about 40 percent of Nigerian children of primary school age were out of school.

He said only 54 percent of those who were admitted into primary school proceeded to secondary school, while only 20 per cent of the 1.3 million who applied for tertiary education were admitted.

“The result is that far less than 40 per cent of Nigerian children have the benefit of education to mould them into responsible members of society.

“There is no gainsaying that our education programme has fallen short of these expectations,” he said.

Akande said, the dream of the founding fathers of Nigeria, who substituted the inherited colonial curriculum for an indigenous system for the generation of an indigenous manpower, had been defeated.

Professor Akande said the failure of government to judiciously fund the 6-3-3-4 education system had created dislocation in the quest of the country to generate the manpower to run the economy.

He explained that many of the products of tertiary institutions who could not secure white collar jobs remained unemployed because the education system did not empower them with vocational skills.