The Nigerian government have been asked to prioritise the reformation of the education sector to save Nigeria’s future.
Ahead of Nigeria’s Economic Summit, the Chairman, Phillips Consulting, Mr Folusho Philips, pointed out that if the government could give the kind of attention it had given to the agriculture sector to the education sector, there would be changes.
“The government must give schooling, education and teaching its pride of place. And that begins to tine with the budget allocation that we put into education” he stressed.
Mr Phillips decried the dilapidated state of infrastructure in the primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Nigeria, pointing out that students cannot concentrate in their classroom that are not conducive.
“I cannot teach a student that does not have a seat to sit on. He cannot concentrate.
“If the education is important to us then it must be shown in the prioritisation given to education.
“Education is bad news in Nigeria and if we can concentrate on education at the summit and raise the issues, may be we can get the people to pay attention to it,” he said.
Physical Development
He further pointed out that for the needed reform to come, the leadership must show the willingness to move in and define education.
“The state that education is in now will not allow Nigeria to achieve the things it wants to do in the future. We keep on saying Africa is the next place, Nigeria is leading Africa… But it is not going to happen unless people can deliver.
“If 10 to 15 years’ from now we do not get our education right, we will not have the ability to deliver what it is that Nigeria wants to do,” Mr Phillips said.
He emphasised the need to inject more funds into the education sector and give it its pride of place, but also said that having the people that could translate the funds injected into reality was also another necessity.
“It is not how much money you put that matters, do you have the people that will translate that funding into a reality. As we stand today, we don’t.
“If Nigeria is to develop, it has to pay attention to physical development. It has to develop the infrastructure, hospital, roads and transportation. If we do not get people that can build physically, if we don’t get all our engineers, technicians and those people that can use their hands, we are not going to be able to create the country that we need.
“We have a lot of grammar going on, a lot of GDP figures, a lot of statistics and data and so on, but the roads are not going to be built, the power stations are not going to be built and the ones that you built, no one is going to maintain them and we will be back to square one,” he stressed.
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