A renowned economist, Prof. Sam Aluko, has blamed students high rate of failure in national examinations on the privatisation of the education sector by the government.

Speaking at the ongoing education summit convoked by the Ekiti State Government in Ado-Ekiti, he said government at all levels erred in hearkening to the advice of the international agencies over the outright privatisation of the education sector.

Aluko, who chaired the occasion, also considered the incessant industrial strike being witnessed in Nigerian schools as one of the debilitating factors affecting the sector.

He posited that it was wrong for the government to have committed a pivotal sector like education in the hands of the private bodies.

Aluko said the privatisation policy had constituted a serious menace to the struggle for academic excellence by students, which he said, was partly responsible for the failure being recorded in the examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) as well as other national and international examination bodies in the country.

He decried the poor performance of students from Ekiti State in the various examinations being undertaken by them, noting that the state had produced the best brains in all fields of endeavour in the country.

Aluko declared: “From primary education to tertiary education level, indiscipline, immorality and strike have crippled the education sector. Govenment says it is privatising the education sector, but where are the committed private investors in the sector today in the country?

“If you train an engineer and he has no job to do, you are indirectly training an armed robber; because he knows how to use the tools to open your doors in the night.

“To me, it is better not to train the students at all than to train them and allow them to remain jobless.”

In his keynote address, Prof. Akin Oyebode, a professor of law and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Ado-Ekiti (UNAD), noted with regret that no Nigerian University was ranked among the best 200 across the world due to poor performances.

He commended the state government for the initiative, saying the summit would help the relevant stakeholders in the education sector to resuscitate the dwindling fortunes of the sector in the state.

He explained that education takes pre-eminence in the scheme of things in any nation, saying that it was highly regrettable that even in Africa, the best Nigerian university was ranked 34th.