From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Federal Government, on Wednesday, announced that its education roadmap for the administration will focus on 13 thematic areas that would expectedly herald significant transformation in the education sector.
Top on the list was the issue of out-of-school children. Other areas are entrepreneurship, financial autonomy, curriculum, teacher education, quality assurance, ICT in education, library services, Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), among others.
This was contained in the newly developed education roadmap that was presented to the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, on Wednesday, in Abuja.
The Minister, had in September, constituted a committee charged with the responsibility of developing a roadmap that will guide the activities in the education sector for the next few years.
Chairman of the Committee, Prof. Nuru Yakubu, who presented the document to the Minister confirmed that various institutions and stakeholders were consulted for input before arriving at the content of the document.
He expressed optimism that good implementation of the document will herald significant transformation in the education sector, thus achieving the desired objective of the President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, for the education sector.
The Minister, in his remarks, appreciated the committee members for their commitment to the task that was given to them by the President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
He assured the committee that the report won’t receive treatment that other reports received, promising that the content of the report will be adequately deployed to ensure that quality of Nigeria’s education system is significantly improved.
He said: “We have been accused of giving Nigerians certificates that are not be valued, and also producing graduates that are not employable. We would be challenging all of that soon beginning from the basic to tertiary education to ensure that they bring value to their certificates.
“Obviously, Nigeria has not been able to achieved what it is supposed to in the education sector in the last years. I am very angry about that too. Some of us have benefitted from what is good, and now we have been countering what is bad. Now that we have this opportunity, we must translate this into something very positive to achieve what we have been crying and yarning for all these years.”
The Minister decried the failure to achieved previous roadmaps, saying, “roadmaps have come and gone but this is not going to be the same. This is not the time to bury policies in files, it’s time to see all policies on ground. Days of talking is over we should now act and do what is right.”
He said they will set up a monitoring and evaluation committee as well as implementation committee that will monitor and give report on monthly basis to ensure they are on track. “The committees will complement the efforts of the Directors and Directorates of all the Agencies that have the mandate to implement these policies.”
PHOTO CAPTION
Prof. Nuru Yakubu presenting the document to the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman.