Nigeria: Education - While the Debate Lasts

18 October 2006
opinion

Lagos — The issue in the news at the moment is education and the debate is taking very interesting forms. The Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiagali Ezekwesili, has also come under fire, but it all comes in the line of duty. But just before we all shout ourselves hoarse, several points are essential for an understanding of the needed, and on-going, reforms in the education sector. The first is that the human being is the primary resource of any nation. The second is that only investment in developing the capacity and possibilities of this national resource can lead to national development; and this is confirmed by the experience and economic standing of "developed" nations. The third point is that it is education, not natural resources, population, land mass, or a desperate elite, with a reprehensible appetite for capital consumption, that develops the capacity of the citizens of a nation. This means that a nation with a limping education system is in danger of sentencing itself to underdevelopment and, possibly, a reversion to barbarism.

Now listen to the Minister of Education: "It is wrong for those of you who understand the enormity of the problems facing the education sector to say that we have an education sector problem. What we have on our hands is a national crisis. Are you not aware that there will be no engineers, professionals, managers, teachers and responsible leaders for the future if the sector that grooms people for citizenship and involvement in the economy is dysfunctional? We must ask ourselves who would be the legislators, the bank managers, etc, in the next 20years, when most of us would be in our sixties and seventies."

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