You may have noticed from this year's (2011) budget proposal now before the national Assembly that the administration which I head, by the grace of God and the wishes of the Nigerian people, intends to spend a record amount on education. This amount is easily the largest amount ever devoted to education since Nigeria became an independent nation on the 1st of October 1960.
One of the root causes of poverty is illiteracy and if we are to make any real progress in fighting illiteracy Nigeria will have to educate Nigerians and elevate our thinking to where we all can collectively change the question from who will change Nigeria?-to the question-how will I change Nigeria
Some pundits have criticised government's effort to set up nine additional universities, with at least one in every geo-political zone (of which work has already begun). They have posited that rather than establish new universities the money would be better spent improving those that already exist. I appreciate their profound thoughts but want to remind us all that currently only 10% of qualified youths are able to get spaces in our universities. Now consider this, as a father with many children what would you do if you learn that there is not enough food for your children and so some are starving while some are eating but are not having enough to eat. Would you focus your effort on improving the diet of those who have food only? No reasonable father would do that. The first and urgent thing to do would be to create a more level playing ground as much as is possible and ensure that all children have access to food and when that has been done then you can focus resources on improving the quality of the food
It is said that society's grow only when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never enjoy. This is precisely what this administration intends to do. As a government, we have a long term plan for Nigeria's education sector which is to devote the lions share of our resources to education over the next four years. Now the results will not always be immediate and that is okay. We must not be wary of long term investments whose yields and results would come only after the initiating administration has left office
In the past two years we have had an abysmal passing rates in both the WAEC and NECO examinations for secondary school leavers. As an educator, I requested for statistics and data on the success rates for those examinations over the years and I discovered that there has been a gradual but steady increase in failure rates. I also requested for and got statistics and data on our national expenditure on education and discovered that allocation to the sector has not matched our population growth. As Nigeria's population has grown over the years, allocation to education has remained stagnant and in some cases has actually reduced year over year and the result has been that our educational facilities has been stretched beyond its capacity
It is to help reverse this negative slide in our educational system that I begun a number of policies and also launched the 'Bring Back The Book Initiative' a citizens framework for knowledge acquisition on December 20th, 2010. I wanted to lead by example and show to Nigeria's youth that reading is cool. That the President and his cabinet read and that if they want to grow up and become presidents, Governors, Ministers, Commissioners captains of industry etc they have to read
Now I am making an appeal, a very strong appeal to all Nigerians. I want all adult working Nigerians to find time this year to visit their alma mater and find out the state of the facilities there and what they can do to help. Donate books, writing materials or feed some of the pupils. Do something no matter how small to make a difference in the schools you graduated from. In fact if it is possible start a big brother/big sister programme where you take out time to mentor a pupil in your alma mater and motivate him or her to be a success. Write to him or her, visit them at school, look over their home work, talk to their teachers. It is possible. I do it within my busy schedule so I know that no matter how busy you are you can find time to do it if the will is there
I also call on corporate organisations to invest in education as part of their social responsibility programme. Give back to the society where you business is based. Build schools. If you can not build schools then renovate schools. If you cannot renovate then donate books. But what you should not do is simply do nothing.
- GEJ
Source: Goodluck Jonathan: Synergizing For Education - The Way To Grow Nigeria (http://www.facebook.com/notes/goodluck-jonathan/synergizing-for-education-the-way-to-grow-nigeria/192423814118595/).