Expert Flays FG Over Decay In Education Sector

An international education administrator and development expert, Dr Fortune Wolugbom, has attributed the decay in Nigeria’s education system to the deliberate neglect of the Federal Government to invest in education development.
Wolugbom, a Rivers US-based educationist, who spoke with The Tide in an interview in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said such culpable neglect has led to substandard training in the education system, and canvassed for sustainable education development policy to address the dwindling state of the sector which has stifled economic growth.
He said the absence of a strategic education development policy that was targeted at preliminary stages of development has obscured effective and functional training of the minds of the youth, which was a fundamental resource required to face the challenges of the future with self-confidence.
He pointed out that in countries like Finland, Singapore, Denmark and the USA, there were education development policies targeted at primary education to explore and groom budding talents for maximal productivity, but regretted that such strategic vision and innovation was totally lacking in Nigeria.
According to the expert, “Nigeria’s education system is based on experimentation and glaring inconsistencies in policy formulation and implementation”.
To build a solid foundation for economic development, he recommended an education policy that would combine learning with evolving practical solutionsto the county’s peculiar development challenges.
He further noted that to “quicken a sense of public duty, patriotism, enterprise, value orientation and self-reliance; we must reserve the elements of quality, consistency, sustainability and standards in our education system”.
Wolugbom, who flayed the Federal Government for under-investing in the education sector, said Nigeria must adhere to United Nations global standards and recommendations for education development, which require maximal budgetary provision among nations for the development of the sector.
He also called for proper training and remuneration of teachers as basic incentives and mobilisation to enable them discharge their duties effectively, noting that teaching was one of the most delicate professions.
He said Rivers State Government under the leadership of Governor Nyesom Wike, has set the pace for the provision of basic incentives and infrastructure for education development, and urged other states to borrow a cue from the Rivers experience.

By: Taneh Beemene