Former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has said that the current education system in Nigeria does not meet the needs of the society.
She said the time spent on education by Nigerians and the value placed on that time does not match.
Ezekwesili, who spoke in Abuja at the opening of Nigerian Education Innovation Summit (NEDIS) 2016, called for an overhaul of education by the Federal Government.
According to The Nation, the former minister, who admitted that the rot in the sector had been there even when she was a minister, warned that the country would be in serious trouble if nothing is done.
She said: “You have to look at education as a system that has got the input, the output, the outcome and your measurement of what the impact and the outcome really stands for. When you do that, then you realise we are in serious trouble. We have been in serious trouble since the time I was minister of education.
“The fact that access to education eludes tens of millions of our children; that for those that do get education, the quality and relevance does not match the needs of the society and therefore there is a mismatch between their own time spent on education and the value that is placed on that time by the market that should be demanding for their skills, knowledge and competences, shows you that whether it is access or value of education, we have a systemic failure and we must overhaul it.
“When we did the diagnostics to the problems of education as of 2006, we had to generate 436 elements of reforms that you will need to do in order to move the Nigerian education system from the dysfunctionality that it was then – still is now if not worse – to a system that produces world class human capital for our country.”
Earlier, Managing Director, The Education Partnership Centre, Dr Modupe Adefeso-Olateju, urged Federal Government to scale up the sector to have impact on Nigerians.
“We want to draw attention to the importance of scaling up as a process. You know we have so many education innovations that are being implemented across the country, but for those innovations to make a significant difference in the education sector, they really have to become more impactful,” she said.
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