She made this observation in her speech at the 2018 NAPPS Day held across the country, recently, with a theme: “Engineering Nigeria’s education system for effective nation building.”
Represented in Lagos by her deputy, Chief Yomi Otubela, she said for Nigeria to win battles staring her face on all fronts and compete favourably in the global economy, it must have to re-engineer the education sector to go along with the current global economic reality.
According to her, challenges facing Nigeria like insecurity, corruption, infrastructural decadence, leadership problem and so forth would be better tackled only when quality graduates are produced into the system.
“But it is disheartening that schools where such graduates will be produced lack basic needs including infrastructures, the dearth of qualified and competent teachers,” she said.
Adding, she said: “Teachers are poorly paid, their welfare is poor. There are frequent industrial actions and unnecessary closure of schools even for mere political parties’ primary elections, there is a high number of out of school children, there is also a problem of safety in and around schools, there is high exam malpractice, and so forth. That is why all these issues must be sincerely addressed to move the economy to an appreciable height.”
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Adukwu-Bolujoko, who also advocating all-inclusive education, called on government at all levels to make a conscious effort in overhauling the sector to produce human capacity needs for today and future development.
She also urged all NAPPS members as strong players in the sector to equally develop a teachable spirit that seeks knowledge and new ways to prepare students for the global market.
In his own remarks, NAPPS President, Lagos State chapter, Mr Wasiu Adunmadeyin, said the essence of NAPPS Day, which comes up yearly to commemorate the World Teacher Day, was to celebrate teachers and other major stakeholders in the sector for their efforts year-round.
“We also use the occasion to reflect on the state of education in the country and fashion out how we can perform our roles better side-by-side that of the government,” he added.
At the event which featured inauguration of NAPPS TV, match past by members on local government basis, also saw few of the teachers in member schools who have performed above others receiving excellence awards to encourage more healthy rivalry among them.
While the overall best teacher of the year went home with a giant deep freezer, other 862 winners at the local government level also received various prizes.
and then