The Education Minister Professor Tahir Mamman says the government is working on how to reset the education system at both the basic and tertiary levels to meet the needs of society.
He said over the years there has been a wide gap between what is taught in schools and what the industry/ the economy requires to meet societal needs, hence the roadmap.
Professor Mamman stated this at the National Stakeholders Workshop on the Development of a Roadmap for the Nigerian Education System 2024-2027 in Anuja, Nigeria.
He said the lack of synergy between the education system and the industry led to the high unemployment rate that Nigeria is currently experiencing.
According to him, the Nigerian educational system over the years had a lot of interventions yet the desired goals have not been achieved
“We had interventions in our educational sectors for a very long time through a lot of commissions, boards among others but we are still where we are today.
“We have our youths out there as graduates but not employable. This is because our education system is not connected to our society or our economy. We cannot remain like this forever,” he said.
Against this background, the minister said the workshop was organised for practical and implementable solutions going forward.
“We are here today recognising this problem. We say something must be done about it.
“The problem has always been meeting the gap between the mission and vision and the actual happening on the ground.
“There are always fantastic policies on paper but the problem is that our people don’t see those policies on the ground. They are not seeing the problems addressed.
“People are no longer seeing the value of sending their children to school because parents have 4 or 5 graduates without jobs,.
“The reason for this is that the quality of education they are getting does not connect them to the industry.
“We also have complaints from the industry that we are churning out graduates who are not employable. We cannot go on like this forever.
“This is why we are saying that in line with the mandate of our president, we have to develop something that will help to guide us, guide implementation, and have a clear task and framework that everybody can be guided by in the course of the tenure of this government.
“Schools should be places of applied knowledge,” he said.
He said the committee was hurried on the mandate given so that there would be enough time for implementation.
So that in the next three years, we will reset the Nigeria education system from the basic to the tertiary levels,” he said.
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He called on state governments to come together and partner with the Federal government for the set objectives to be achieved because States at in charge of basic education
In a remark, the House Committee Chairman on University Education, Honorable Abubakar Fulata, called for increased salaries for teachers.
He advocated for the “sum of N250,000 to be paid to Primary school teachers, secondary school teachers N500, 000 and 1,000,000 naira for University lecturers on a monthly basis”
He called for indigenous languages to be used in teaching and learning in schools rather than English as done in Russia, France, and China.
He also backed the call for a state of emergency to be declared in the education sector, while calling for a 25% budget allocation to the sector, promising that the roadmap would be considered when making laws for the sector at the National Assembly.
On behalf of the Development Partners, Dilip Parajuli of the World Bank urged the roadmap committee to consider skills acquisition as part of what students must learn going forward as 4 million Nigerians graduate from schools every year into the labour market.
“Similarly, infrastructure, quality and teacher efficacy, deployment to rural areas, and financing should be considered,” said Dilip.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala said there was a need to take responsibility for the challenges in the educational sector, especially in the area of funding.
She pledged the support of the President to a successful roadmap and implementation.
Dominica Nwabufo
