Fallen standard of education: NEC directs Govs to declare emergency in 36 states

…Wants FG, states to allocate 15 per cent of annual budget to education
The National Economic Council (NEC) has asked states governors to declare state of emergency in all their respective states in order to urgently address the falling standard of education in the country.

In this regard, the NEC constituted an Ad-Committee to review and submit recommendations to the Council on how best the education sector could be revived.

Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shuaibu, who briefed State House Correspondents alongside the Bauchi State Governor Mohammed Abubakar and the Minister of State, Health, Osagie Ehanire, after the NEC meeting held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said that the decision was sequel to a presentation made by the Minister of Education to NEC on Thursday, June 28, 2018, on the National Education Policy.

Shuaibu said that governors would declare a state of emergency in the education sector of their respective states and demonstrate their commitment to revamping education.

Federal and State governments are to allocate a minimum of 15% of their budgets to education in order to revolutionalise the sector, he said.

He added that the NEC also constituted a special task force to manage the funds and oversee the infrastructural overhaul of selected schools for intervention across the federation.

He said, “The Committee observed that a multi-frontal approach is required to tackle the various factors militating against the achievement of the nation’s educational objectives, in view of the multi-dimensional nature of the crisis in the education sector.

“The committee strongly recommends that the Federal Government, States and Local Governments collaborate to vigorously implement, and sustain action on the 10 pillars of the Ministerial Strategic Plan developed by the Federal Ministry of Education.

“Among the areas of attention are the issue of out-of-school children, promoting adult literacy and special needs education, reviving Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET), strengthening basic education,

prioritising teacher education, capacity building and professional development, ensuring quality and access in tertiary education, promoting ICT in education, boosting library services in education etc.”

Shuaibu said that while the interim report is being reviewed by the members of the Council, a more detailed report be prepared and presented at the next NEC meeting when decisions would be taken on the proposed recommendations.

Speaking further, he explained: “On the state of emergency that is to be declared on education, there is a strategic plan developed by the Federal Ministry of Education.

Beyond that, the world is going global and technology is driving the world; if you look deeply, our major areas of development beyond infrastructure is the basic education and teachers and the council discovered that we need to also look into the area of technical education out of school children.”

“If we address basic education and the foundation is well laid at that level, obviously the secondary and tertiary education would have been half solved. Declaring state of emergency is at the basic and we must look at the indices that make up our challenges especially at the area of technology.”

The council said that the ministerial plan is for all the states and local government to key in, so that all will be on the same page, saying that, “it’s not going to be one of those documents that will be kept aside, and we are all unanimous in addressing it and all the states have agreed on this.”