We’ve lost more teachers than medical workers -Minister

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, said Nigeria’s education sector has lost more manpower than what has been recorded in the medical sector.

This was, perhaps, contrary to the general belief that the “japa” syndrome affects the medical sector more than any other sector of the Nigerian economy.

Prof. Mamman disclosed the development when he declared open the three-day stakeholders’ round table for the critique and adoption of the draft stand-alone national policy on open, distance and e-learning in Abuja, yesterday.

He said: “The most effective instrument of development of any nation is the education sector. That’s why developed countries like Canada, America, Germany, and several others, are rushing our best brains in the teaching profession, in addition to the medical sector.

“Many Nigerians might not know, or it will be surprising to them to hear that we have lost more manpower in the teaching profession to foreign interests than the manpower that we have lost in the medical profession. This is because their skills are crucial to the development of any country.

“So, we have to take urgent action to fix the identified challenge, otherwise, we would have a long way to go if we fail to get the education sector right. But, that won’t happen because we are determined to fix the challenge, and we would achieve the target goal leveraging the support we have been receiving from the president.”

He said several policies, academically and otherwise, had been developed to ensure the smooth and effective running of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system of education, thus challenging participants at the meeting to further critique the document and make the necessary inputs to fine-tune the policy document.