From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Nigeria and Ghana Ministers of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman and Osei Edutwum, respectively, have amplified campaign for positive disruption in the education system in the continent that would end the era of education for certificate.
The Ministers, in their separate submissions at a conference for Ministers of Education in Africa, expressed fears that Africa might miss out in the fourth industrial revolution going on in the world which is driven by the technology if it fails to retool its education system to strongly promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Ghana Minister of Education reminded his colleague-Ministers that Africa missed in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd industrial revolution simply because of lack of focus from its leadership, challenging the Ministers to take up the responsibility of retooling their education system to achieve more result.
He said: “For instance, in Ghana, we took decision seven years ago to begin the digitalization of our education system. In Ghana, we have recorded improved school enrollment. Additionally, we have distributed a tablet to every student in our high school.
“This has enabled us to move significant part of our education services to secured digital platforms. Ghana is, undoubtedly, leveraging technology to improve its education, and we are seeing and happy with the results we are getting. We have strongly promoted creativity and communication in our education system.”
He appreciated the opportunity of the meeting with other Ministers of Education from across Africa, which, he added, was an opportunity to exchange policy ideas, knowledge, expertise and information that might useful in driving reforms in the education sector.
He challenged the Ministers to push for practical actions that would transform their education system for individual and national development, and not focus their energy on some unrealistic policies.
Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, appreciated the organizers of the conference, stating that the meeting has provided opportunity for the Ministers to compare notes amongst themselves, and make relevant changes where necessary.
He admitted that technology is redefining the world, with reference to Artificial Intelligence (AI), hence the commitment of Federal Ministry of Education to championing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and other skill acquisition endeavours.
He said the education roadmap of the government was carefully designed to close the gap between the industry needs and the universities’ products in terms of quality of graduates, hence the periodic review of the curriculum being used in various levels of the education system.
He told his colleague-ministers that several policies and programmes of the government are yielding the desired result, making reference to recent report that indicated that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria has reduced by two million, from hitherto over 10 million.
The further disclosed that the two million children who are mostly Almajiri children were lifted from the streets and enrolled in school including Arabic literacy programmes, to acquire basic education, acquire vocational training.
“This was one of the major focus of the current administration. There’s hope that before the end of the year, many more out-of-school children would be brought back to acquire learning and skills.
“We have developed the guidelines and training manuals for the implementation of inclusive basic education Nigeria. These have increased access, enrollment and retention completion of both basic, secondary and tertiary school levels,” he said.