Education, youth development must be restructured ― Stakeholders

For any country to make wholesome development, the education system needs to be prioritised and in order to fix tertiary education, focus must be placed on the foundation.

This was the submission made by the former Minister of Education in Nigeria, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili at the 2022 African Government Stakeholders Engagement Forum (AGSEF) conference.

The conference had the theme ‘Restructuring Education and Youth Development in Africa’.

Ezekwesili, who was represented by Mr Fidelis Ekom from the Human Capital Group, noted that focus must be placed on the foundation of education because without the foundation being solid, everything crumbles.

While employing a data-driven solution that highlights the severity of the learning problem in sub-Saharan Africa, Ezekwesili made emphasis on the need for the education ecosystem in Africa to be restructured.

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She applauded the AGSEF team for “the incredible role they are playing to make sure that there is a singular framework that unifies practices across Africa by deegly analysing the economic and social issues that have a constraint in Africa.”

The convener and founder of AGSEF, Just Omomo Ibe, added that education has the ability to contribute to a country’s output and export.

She said, “The education sector increases the competitiveness of a country’s export sector because knowledge accumulation influences its trade performance and competitiveness, and trade in turn enhances knowledge accumulation.

The co-founder of AGSEF, Edith Niage. also noted that Africa needs to have youths at the forefront and in every strata of the society.

The AGSEF conference had a high-level panel discussion among various panellists from different regions in Africa, with each panellist sharing insights on the current education and youth development system across Africa and key approaches needed to restructure both systems.