Our education sector needs to be reformatted – Prof. Okebukola
The Former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola (OFR) has stated that the Nigerian Education Sector needs to be reformatted to achieve the needed change.
Okebukola who is also the Chairman of Council, Crawford University and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Caleb University stated this while speaking as the guest lecturer for the Second Convocation Lecture of McPherson
University titled ‘Reconstructing the Shattered Education Mirror: Hard Choices We Cannot Side Step’.
Lamenting the rot in the sector, the Professor said, “In1960, the Standard six product had good skills for the workplace. In 2017, the typical university graduate can hardly be touched with a 10-metre pole by serious-minded employers.
“Adult literacy rate in 2017 is still a shameful 67%, 57 years after independence and we are unable to attain most of the Education for All and Millennium Development Goals relating to education in spite of the huge resources of the country to make sure we do not rub shoulders with countries on the ignoble list of poor performers in education. Now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are here and we are unsure of their attainment by 2030.”
At the event which held at the university campus in Serki -Sotayo in Ogun State, Okebukola said “Less than 20% of the public primary schools in the country are sufficiently resourced to deliver quality basic education, yet
officials of Local and State Governments to which this level of education is assigned are feeding fat through “jumbo” salaries, big cars, huge personal mansions and are known for ostentatious living.”
He maintained that the recent competency tests for teachers in Kwara and Edo and recently Kaduna should be applauded saying, “If conducted nationwide, the results will be alarming, yet for political gains, State Governors except Kaduna are scared to take corrective action, jeopardising the future of the country.”
Speaking on how to go about the reformatting, Okebukola said the system needs to be cleansed of old content and installing new framework for fresh content.
He said although a total reformatting may be difficult giving all the players and stakeholders that will be affected, a partial reformatting may be the needful.
In his words, the reformatting must come in two key areas. “there is need for a curriculum reformatting which will shed the fat from the curriculum.
The curriculum at all levels of the education system is laden with too many topics that can be labelled as junk in the light of modern development in the discipline and prepare for the world of work and effective service delivery.
“We also need to reformat the curriculum to respond to jobs of the future.In the next ten years, the jobs that will be available for products of our school system at the level of the nation and globally will be quite different from what we have today.
” Secondly, the reformatting of teacher education because we cannot hope for a top-quality education system if we staff our schools with second-rate teachers. We need a profession full of inspiring, innovative, creative and
knowledgeable teachers.”
Speaking measure to carry out the reformatting of teacher education, he said reduction in the load of Education courses was vital.
He said, “for those wishing to be subject teachers should be maximum 15% ofthe total course load. For instance if the total number of units (TNU) for a 4-year degree programme is 120, all Education courses from 100 to 400 level should not exceed a total of 18 units.
” Avoiding early specialisation at the undergraduate level. such areas as Educational Management/Educational Administration and Planning and Guidance and Counselling should be discontinued in favour of specialisation at the Postgraduate level.
” We also need to limit the number of Sandwich/Part-time Students as it has been found that over 60% of the poor quality teachers in the secondary school system are trained through Sandwich/Part-time programmes.
Periodic training in modern methods of teaching will be be needed.
Earlier in his remark, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Adeniyi Agunbiade had said of the 46 graduands, “Four (04) of them made First Class Honours (8.7%), Twenty-one (21) are in the Second Class Upper Division (45.7%) while Twenty (20) are graduating with Second Class Lower Division (43.4%). Others fall into the Third Class (2.2%) category.”
The VC maintained that the high percentage of students with excellent and exceptional performance is not unconnected with a culture of rewarding academic excellence instituted by McPherson University.
Joy Anyim
