The National Economic Council meeting moves to revive Nigeria’s Education sector.
The National Economic Council, NEC is considering declaring a state of emergency in education to revamp the sector which is vital for Nigeria’s development.
Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shuaibu made this known to Journalists while briefing them on the outcome of the Council’s meeting on Thursday. The Vice President Yemi Osinbajo presided over the meeting.
Shuaibu said this was part of the recommendations contained in the interim report of an ad-hoc committee set up by the NEC to look into ways of revamping education in the country.
He said; “On the report present to the Council in June by the Minister of Education, NEC thereafter set up an ad-hoc committee on the revival of the educational sector in Nigeria, to review and submit recommendations. The ad-hoc committee submitted an interim report where it observed that a multi-frontal approach is required to tackle various factors militating against achievement of the national education objective.
”It was also discovered by the committee that Federal, State and Local Governments collaborate to vigorously implement and sustain action on the 10 pillars of the strategic plans developed by the Ministry of Education. The committee recommended that all State Governors declare a state of emergency in the education sector in their various states and demonstrate the commitment to revamp education.”
The Deputy Governor said the committee also recommended that the Nigerian government and all states should allocate at least 15 percent of their federal or state budgets to education in order to revitalise that sector.
“The state of emergency that is to be declared on education is clear, there is a strategic plan developed by the federal ministry of education beyond that you know the world is going global and technology is driving the world, if you look deeply, our major areas of development beyond infrastructure is the basic education and teachers and the council discovered that we need to also look into the area of technical education out of school children…
If we address basic education and the foundation is well laid at that level, obviously the secondary and tertiary education would have been half solved, declaring state of emergency is at the basic and we must look at the indices that make up our challenges especially at the area of technology. So the ministerial plan is for all the states and local government to key in so that all will be on the same page. It’s not going to be one of those documents that will be kept aside and we are all unanimous in addressing it and all the states have agreed on this,” Shuaibu explained.
