Legislator urges students to fight poor education

Sen. Robert Boroffice on Friday urged Nigerian students to support any agenda that would fight poor quality of education in the country.

Boroffice said this during an event organised by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to mark the International Students Day In Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event had the theme Securing Nigeria’s Future: Nigerian Students Campaign against Female Sexual Harassment and Victimization, Cultism, Cybercrime, Corruption, Drug Abuse and other Social Vices.

“It’s a straight forward thing; look at the Governor of Kaduna, El-Rufai is trying to sanitise the education system.

“Trying to improve on the quality of teaching and because of that he has decided to sack a large number of teachers who are not fit, who are not qualified to give instructions to future Nigerians and some people are angry, some people are protesting.

“I thought the Nigerian students should speak out to support El-Rufia because what he is doing is a good job and should be congratulated for it.

“Education is one of the pillars that holds a nation so if that foundation is weak then the nation we are building will be very weak.

The senator added that the students must also fight against social vices such as cyber crime, corruption, sexual harassment, drug abuse amongst other, describing them as cancers which were destroying the nation.

“The issue of corruption is not only found with politicians. There is corruption even in the university; even among students and lectures.

“The issue of cultism is very serious it affects lecturers, the students and the immediate campuses. So we must tackle it and regulate it.

“The voice of students is very important and you must continue to fight for human rights and good governance.”

Borofice said he was concerned that 60 per cent of Nigerian graduates studied marketing and Business Administration, adding that more students were needed in the sciences if the country is to move forward.

“What worries me is the concentration of our students in what I will call easy areas of marketing and business administration.

“We are neglecting science and technology and mathematics which is the foundation of industralisation of any nation

“If you want to be a country that is being recognized, if you want to move on technologically, if you want to create jobs through innovation, then you must engage science, technology engineering and mathematics.

“It is when you have a vibrant private sector then you can be talking of business administration and management.’’

NAN reports that the International Students day is an international observance of students community held annually on Nov. 17.

It commemorates the Nazi German storming of Czech universities in 1939 and the subsequent killing and sending of students to concentration camps.