NUC to relax criteria to access education fund

President Muhammadu Buhari recently organised a special retreat for the Federal Executive Council on challenges in the education sector during which participants urged the government to declare a state of emergency on education sector and make more investments in the sector.
A former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola, summarizing the major problem in the sector, noted that the decay in education mainly resulted from policy incoherence, teacher inadequacy and poor funding among others, and showed how the problems associated with teaching and learning have affected the effectiveness of the education system in providing solutions to Nigeria’s social security problem.
The documentary showed how a huge number of students in hostels and classrooms across the country learn under dilapidated and unhealthy conditions caused by decayed infrastructure, and the way inadequate facilities in many places have affected the delivery of quality education.
There were millions of out-of-school children and countless others were being pushed out of school as a result of a number of unattended factors. It was disclosed that children, irrespective of their backgrounds, must have access to schools to be able to avoid naughtiness and make constructive choices for themselves.
He said literacy rate hasn’t improved because the number of illiterate adults in the country was still frightening while academic corruption, cultism, plagiarism and cooked data were on the rise at higher institutions of learning.
Proffering the way out, Prof Okebukola called for the urgent need to improve teachers’ professional training in order to redefine their roles and increase their responsibilities as well as to have sound pedagogic and content knowledge.
In his remarks at the event, President Muhammadu Buhari pledged that government was committed to revitalizing the education system and making it more responsive and globally competitive.
The President believed that the state of education in the country demands serious concern, saying, “That is why we are all gathered here today. The problem is no longer a secret that the quality of education in Nigeria requires greater attention and improvement.”
“That our country is facing numerous challenges in education and all other sectors as a result of historical abuses, mindless impunity and corruption is not news to anyone.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo affirmed that Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education was an important ingredient in industrial development and urged more students to go into those fields, because “it will be difficult to provide food, shelter and health without STEM.”
Minister of education, Malam Adamu Adamu, in his part said that education was a collective responsibility and its failure could be taken as the failure of the entire country. “We are all involved in education because it affects us all.
“Basic education constitutes the foundation and it has to be given all the attention it deserves. We need to ask questions on what we teach and who does the teaching,” he said.
The minister disclosed that more attention would be paid to teachers and teaching as a profession, mass literacy, adult education, distance learning as well as nomadic education.
“We must learn to make education attractive to the best brains, make its study free, its outcome lucrative and accord it the respect it deserves. That is why we must attract and retain the best brains in the classroom as it is done in many other nations of the world.”