Minister calls for stakeholders’ support to salvage education

THE Minister of Education, Professor Ruquayattu Ahmed Rufai, has called on education managers to put their acts together in combining efforts to salvage the Nigerian education sector, which has suffered from serious neglect over the years with results of several indices of measurement of standard indicating poor achievements.

The minister who gave the indication at a two-day workshop on Effective School Management for principals of senior secondary schools in Dutse, said the challenge must be taken care of in a collective manner by all stakeholders if Nigerian products are to measure on equal terms with their peers in other climes.

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She indicated that the workshop has come at an appropriate time going by the hopeless situation in the education sector as indicated by various development partners’ findings.

According to her: “Situation analysis on the condition of schools across the country prior to the Universal Basic education (UBE) programmes indicated that schools were lacking in almost all the measures that contribute to school’s effectiveness and quality.”

“Reports from our development partners project and Nigerian government initiative just before the implementation of the UBE, as contained in the project implementation plan also revealed that most teachers and managers who headed our schools’ systems and managed our resources did not receive any training beyond those acquired at the university degree and pre-degree level,” she noted.

She pointed out that the revelation tallies with the report at a stakeholders’ roundtable on the state of education in Nigeria.

Explaining further, she said the Monitoring and Learning Achievements (MLA), which is saddled with assessing the performances of the Nigerian pupils and students, has reported that their performance is lower compared to other sub-Saharan African countries in numeracy, literacy and life skills.

The minister revealed that their national average from the World Bank report indicated below 50 per cent in all the three areas of assessment as national average.

“Available records also indicated that, on the average and at national level, the proportion of qualified teachers in primary and secondary schools were 61 per cent and 51.68 per cent respectively. The issue must be addressed collectively, if our products are to compare favourably globally,” she reiterated.

Professor Rufai urged the participants to take part in the workshop dutifully as experienced, versatile and knowledgeable resource persons have been invited to treat the topics properly.

The Chairman of the Governing Board of the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) Nigeria, organisers of the workshop, indicated that the workshop was taken to Jigawa as a mark of honour to the minister. He charged the participants to reciprocate by being committed to their duties.