Education

Don advocates overhaul of Nigeria education system for global relevance

NO country can go beyond the quality of its human capital, it is therefore important that Nigeria overhauls its education system for effectiveness, relevance and global competitiveness.

Making this declaration on Monday was the former Vice Chancellor, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA) and a professor of Political Science at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Oluwafemi Mimiko, while delivering the maiden public lecture of the KolaDaisi University, (KDU), Ibadan, Nigeria, held at the Sherifat Agbeke Auditorium of the institution.

Professor Miimiko on the topic: ‘Why should Regular Nation-Building Challenges Continue to Undercut Nigeria’s Development Possibilities? Lessons from Elsewhere.’

He posited that if Nigerian education must be at par with what obtains in other developed nations of the world, special attention must be paid in particular to mainstreaming Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), which he affirmed constitutes the lynchpin of any modern society.

“Same goes for healthcare and nutrition – the two other dimensions by which human capital is depicted. All of these are the ways of a developmental state, which requires a berth in Nigeria if the promise of good governance and democracy is to be delivered,” he said.

He noted that Nigeria as a nation is by all means a land of enormous potential, yet it has a huge, mostly youthful population of deprived, disenchanted, disoriented and angry people, saying that the Adult and Non Education Commission proclaims 31 percent of Nigerians as illiterates.

“The state is complex in its outlook, but bereft of the requisite capacity to administer development. It is structured to enrich and sustain exclusivity, and the country itself groans in the throes of state capture.

It is practically held down by a privileged ruling elite that has little or no sensitivity to the land, but rather readily weaponries such, in its single-minded pursuit of power,” he said.

He also said that “there is hardly any better way to describe a country that has 63 percent of its 220 million people live in multidimensional poverty; 20 million of its children of school age roaming the streets, maternal mortality rate at 1,047 per 100,000 in 2020 was one of the worst in the world and an employment figure at 33.6 percent.

Insecurity remains a critical issue of concern, with at least two of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world operating from Nigeria.”

If these challenges would not cast the country permanently as a land of mismanaged potentials he suggested a reformed state that must be visionary, inclusive, and nimble enough to be capable of addressing the differing, probably conflicting aspirations of the array of formations that make up Nigeria.

According to him, that is what so many other countries across continents, chose to do at different stages of their evolution, to be able to deal with some of their own nation-building pressures, such as are currently overwhelming Nigeria.

In his opening remarks, the vice chancellor of the institution, Professor Adeniyi Israel Olatubosun, said as part of the academic culture, public enlightenment is an obligation the university owes the general public, hence the reason KDU is living up to it mandate not only as a citadel of learning, but also as a world in miniature, where possible solution can be designed, implemented and actualised for the comfortable existence of people in the society.

He said, the reasons behind Nigeria’s failure to learn from progressive nations of the world both within and without Africa are wrapped under corruption, lack of discipline, lack of respect for fundamental human rights and underutilised resources among others.

“These reasons are fertile ground for the breeding insecurity problem, stagnant and battered economy and dependence on Western capitalist prescribed models, making it difficult for the country to excruciate itself from the typical status of an underdeveloped economy,” he said.

MODUPE GEORGE