The Nigerian Academy of Education has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to critically look into Nigeria’s dwindling education system with a view to improving on its standards.
The agency identified the alleged fallen standard of education in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa as being responsible for the under-development of the region.
This was the submission of participants at the 30th annual congress of the Nigerian Academy of Education held in Kaduna State, North-West Nigeria.
The Vice Chancellor of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Professor Vincent Tenebe, said “without quality teachers, there is no future for Nigeria because teachers are the bedrock of any development in the society”.
According to him, education was the mother of all arts, maintaining that teachers today should be one of the well paid in the country because if they were paid well, they will produce the best.
The academic stressed that in situations where reverse was the case, it would amount to a case of garbage-in garbage-out.
The Guest Speaker, Professor Olugbemiro Jegede, decried that over 29 million primary school age children were not in school in Sub- Saharan Africa.
He identified some of the factors responsible for the low quality of education in Nigeria to include, depreciating quality of teachers, deficiency in research and capacity, inadequate teaching facilities and lack of regional quality assurance framework among others.
Professor Jegede called on President Buhari to appoint an educationist as Minister of Education.
The President of the academy, Professor Uduogie Ivowi, highlighted that there were strong recommendations that needed to be looked into to raise the falling standard of education in the country.
He observed that although there were several challenges confronting the sector ranging from lack of qualitative teachers to funding among others, if the facilities were provided, the standard of education would definitely improve.
Other participants at the event attributed the poor academic standard in public schools and lack of skilled teachers to poor funding of the education sector in the country.
