A former lecturer in Education, Professor Pai Obanya, has called for the radicalisation of Nigeria’s educational sector in order to achieve global best practices in the field.
Making the proposal, Wednesday, at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education’s 10th Anniversary Public Lecture, the Emeritus Professor, Institute of Education, University of Ibadan, stated that radicalisation of the education sector is necessitated by the fact that a state of emergency needs to be declared in the sector.
“It (education) requires a paradigm shift from education for all, with all, and by all.
“It calls for concerted and radical action to be guided by a National Education Emergency Response Strategy (NEERS) that should tackle our education sector’s burning issues anchored on three pillars – politics/policy, planning/management, and operations/practicalisation”, he said.
According to Prof Obanya, under the first pillar (politics/policy), the entire citizenry has to be mobilized, with wide spread stakeholders/multisector synergy, and synergy from the beginning to the end of the policy development process.
It will also require the government to build social will to synchronise with political will, invest necessary funds, fully integrate private providers into the process, as well as have regular, inclusive policy dialogue at all levels.
In planning and management, he said, there should be planned development of education, ministerial strategic plan on education, commonality of interest in terms of pillars (policy makers) and enablers (policy executors).
He continued that there should be updating/harmonization and vigorous pursuit of policies, addressing of the data drought question, harnessing of ICT potentials and micro planning in the education sector.
The third pillar, Obanya stated, should be the era of “business unusual”, sowing/nurturing and reaping quality, instituting educative schools everywhere and returning quality teachers in their numbers to the system.
Others are institutionalization of teachers’ professional support, prioritization of lecturer psycho-social support, promotion of curriculum enrichment and mainstreaming of the implicit curriculum.
The emeritus professor, also known as the “Grand Sage of Education in Africa”, called for de-intoxication of the continuous assessment in its true form, and monitoring of learning achievement.
Earlier in his address, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Ozo-Mekuri Ndimele, stated that the institution has achieved a lot in ten years.
He recalled that from awarding degrees in only education, the university first got National Universities Commission’s approval for 25 programmes, then another approval to run Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science in 25 new programmes, as well as creating four new programmes.
“By 2017, we applied and got approval from NUC to mount PGD, Masters, and Ph.D, and we can boast that we have one of the best Ph.D programmes in Nigeria”, he said.
He continues that “our students graduate in record time, with little hassles, and by the next convocation, we will be introducing our first Ph.D graduates”.

Sogbeba Dokubo