Amidst glaring falling stan
    dard in Nigeria’s educational sector, a former university don, Professor Ebiegberi J. Alagoa, has described the sector as most uninspiring.
Professor Alagoa, who spoke to The Tide at the weekend in an exclusive interview at the 12th edition of the presentation of the “Book of the Month” in Presidential Hotel, hinted that the fall in the standard of education is what the event of the day sort to correct.
“The educational sector is not very inspiring, to say the least. We’ve been talking more about numbers rather than quality, which is not good. That is the sort of thing that this reading book culture will seek to correct”, he said..
The Professor of Archeology used the opportunity to call on academicians, students and the public at large to embrace the reading culture as advocated by the ideals of the organisers of the “book of the month” in celebration of Port Harcourt being the “World Book Capital”.
“We should do practical things that will extend the ideas that are generated in this programme and make them our own, and extend them wider and deeper into our educational system”, he urged.
While acknowledging the drop in education, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Nasarawa State University, Professor Yakubu Boyi Nawai, noted that the falling standard of the country’s educational sector is easily identifiable when compared to other countries.
“To be very frank, things have been too good for this nation. For some of us who have had the opportunity of going  out of this country to study, we know that it’s a different world.
“We are well behind others and there is need to improve, particularly the primary school. We’ve got it wrong, some things have gone wrong in primary education and government will need to look at that”, he said.
Also speaking, the author of the book of the month. “The virtuous woman”, Professor Zaynab Alkali focused on the effect of the falling standard of education in the country.
“It is a pity because the kind of students we get these days are, as people says (nothing to write home about). Standards are falling, so we have to start from the nursery, primary and secondary schools”, she said.
Last weekend’s “Book of the Month” celebration marks the end of the project which is part of celebrations marking Port Harcourt as the world book capital of 2014, which came to an end in March, 2015.