Post by Trade Coach on Mar 26, 2017 12:55:57 GMT 1
At all levels, education must be given a priority. In my mind, there is no excuse for any government for not funding education adequately, because education is the beginning of development. Any government in this country should be able to fund education at their respective level. I can recall that during the tenure of Lateef Jakande, in response to one of the numerous questions posed to him, he categorically stated that he would prefer building a school rather than a bridge, because a school that will produce engineer who will later build roads and bridges. So, to the revered Baba Kekere, as he was fondly called, ‘’there’s no excuse whatsoever for anyone, anywhere not to fund education adequately’’
Also, there has always been an uncouth expression by academic belligerents that those who think education is costly can experiment ignorance, to come to terms with the stark reality that impossibility can only be found in the lexicon of fools. It is a settled admission that the provision of basic environment and tools for development of man’s broken frontiers and collapsing values should as a responsibility be that of government in whom the citizenry have relinquished their sovereignty.
Again, latter-day promulgation revealed global concern for the development of mankind in taught which has consequently caused to be scripted in global agenda the issue of educational policy. It is in pursuit of the targeted Millinium development goal that the former administration of President Ebele Jonathan introduced
It will be trite to state that the effort purely aimed at stimulating the yet-to-be harvested potentials in man, and further need as the catalyst for human development. However, looking at it, there is always more to the impact of education at the technical sector beyond scaling the illiteracy scale, be it vocational or liberal. The attainment of higher education is seen as the completion of the full human development and identity voyage. Higher or advanced education from origin has been invented to rebuild frontiers with empirical precisions nay research and inventions. It remains to be seen how education can thrive and have its needed effect without the technical knowledge and research.
Technical education has been identified as the major challenge which requires a holistic intervention by both the local, state and the federal governments, if Nigeria must join the league of productive and self-reliant economies in the foreseeable future. This concern was expressed shortly after an NGO, under the auspices ‘executive elite 007 club of Nigeria’ observed that the country’s rating in entrepreneurial development is low.
In a chat with a concerned citizen, Mr. Tunde Ogunmodede, General Secretary, Executive Elite 007 Club of Nigeria, he opined that education is a powerful instrument for industrial and socio-economic development of a nation and should therefore be adequately funded. His words: ‘’ If educational empowerment is the key to economic development of a nation, the technical education should be the master key and should also be given the pride of place in education in Nigeria’’.
He stressed the need to train and retrain teachers, equip schools adequately with a view to making them conducive for learning. He also charged parents to prepare children at home so as to enable them to be part of the learning process and equipped to be part of knowledge acquisition.
Apart from the statutory allocation of a sizable chunk of the budget to the education sector, it became expedient to see that other necessary avenues are utilized to complement what the government is allocating to education. Granted that there had been years of total collapse and non-sensitivity towards the ‘’falling standard’’ of education in Nigeria.
Technical education has been singled out as a major challenge which requires a holistic intervention by both local, states and the federal governments, if Nigeria must join the league of productive and self-reliant economies of the world. The plan of the government should include reforming and restructuring technical education, they should make technical education to be more relevant; make them ( technical/vocational colleges) conducive to learning, revamp and restructure them, and make sure that about 80 per cent of workers who are artisans in the country are retrained, retained and certificated. Government’s plan should include giving skills, to make the technicians fit for purpose, competency-based skill in modern world
The economy of the world is rapidly changing. It is now knowledge based and it’s also full of technology. We need to train our teachers, retrain and continue to train the teachers, equip the schools adequately so that they can be conducive to learning.