Professor Pat Utomi has called on the federal government to meet the demands of teachers who are at present on strike.

Professor Utomi made the call in a public lecture entitled "Plugging the other Brain Drain: Educational and Career Opportunities for the Indigent Child." He gave the lecture last Friday at Muson Centre, Lagos.

Utomi, who is a don at the Lagos Business School, said education is so important to the extent that nations with poor educational system always find it difficult to develop. He said that is why it is important for government to take care of teachers, provide them with a good working environment, pay them well so that they can deliver.

Speaking on Education policy and the indigent he said, "we were all poor not so long ago. When I see public officials and politicians who act contemptuous of the poor and underprivileged, I am usually moved to pity.

How easily we forget it could be us out there and how deem our vision can be regarding shared future if we realise that themes like for all by year 2020 is no more sloganeering than mental imagery of what must happen if our tomorrow is to be paradise reclaimed rather than a book of mere lamentations. Professor Utomi drew attention to the poverty of state of policy on education.

"As we speak, members of Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, are on a nationwide strike occasioned by the failure of a prolonged effort to get some modest enhancement of their conditions of service.

The kind of failure to understand the consequence of neglect of teaching impacting the prestige of teachers and the willingness of people of quality to seek careers in such a profession by the policy elite is a statement on the Nigerian condition.

The result has been the deterioration in quality of output with dire consequences for human capital regeneration."

The lecture was organised by Courage Education Foundation, a non-governmental Organisation founded by Christ's Church Gbagada, Lagos.