The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman has expressed optimism that the current APC-led administration would revamp the education sector as a critical component of the Renewed Hope Agenda.
He stated this at a one-day national stakeholders’ workshop on the development of a roadmap for the Nigerian education sector (2023-2027) on Thursday in Abuja.
The minister stated that the Federal Ministry of Education has excellent policies on paper that are not meeting the needs of the people.
When fully developed, the new roadmap is expected to address the prolonged out-of-school children, skills, and entrepreneurship education.
Mamman hinted that the country’s education system does not align with the needs of society, which necessitated the development of a roadmap for change, adding that the roadmap must be implemented within the shortest timeline.
He informed that President Bola Tinubu has charged the ministry to reposition the sector, though there are problems that have been hindering the vision, mission and objectives of the ministry.
“We have great and fantastic policies, but the issue is that our people are not seeing our problems addressed. We have institutions churning out graduates who are not employable, and we cannot continue like this forever.
“So, in line with our president’s mandate, we must have a roadmap to guide the implementation of how to take the sector forward.
“The purpose of this conference is to allocate sufficient time for the implementation of our policies,” he added.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on University Education, Hon. Abubakar Fulata requested for salary increments for primary, secondary and university teachers.
He suggested that teachers should not earn less than N250,000, N500,000, and N1 million respectively as their monthly remuneration, adding that timely payment of teachers would encourage them to educate children.
Fulata harped on the need to translate all subject textbooks into local languages to keep up with the rest of the world, saying that several efforts made by successive governments to rejig education failed to yield the desired results.
“All over the world, the language of instruction has always been the local language of those countries. If you go to the UK, education is taught in English, and if you go to France, education from the basic level up to the tertiary level is taught in French.
“It is in Nigeria that you teach the language of instruction in English. Our problem has always been that we are teaching our children subjects they ought to have been taught in their local language.
“All mathematics, physics, chemistry textbooks, and other subjects should be available in our local languages. There is no way we can catch up with the world if we continue teaching our children foreign language,” he said.
Fulata maintained that Nigeria must declare a state of emergency in education and commit at least 25 to 30 per cent of the national budget to education.
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