Ezekwesili's bombshell at Lagos Education Summit
By GABRIEL DIKE
She is in a better position to tell Nigerians the truth and at the Third Lagos State Education Summit, she alerted the nation of another failure staring us in the face and the consequences for our education sector.
Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, dropped the bombshell at the two-day summit held at Eko Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, that going by the current performance of the nation's education sector, the Education For All (EFA) goals in 2015 would not be feasible.
Delivering her keynote address at the summit tagged: "Raising the standards", Madam Due Process as she was fondly called, when she served the Obasanjo administration, disclosed that based on the current performance of the sector, "we are not going to be one of the countries that will achieve the EFA goals in 2015.
In 2012, over 10.5 million kids are out of school. 17 per cent of our school kids in the world is a Nigerian. We have 50 million illerate people". In her 17-page address entitled: "Qualitative education in Lagos State: Raising the standards" said the rapid pace of globalization validates the global targets such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which help to advance country competitiveness and set target for universal access to primary education which includes Education For All through 100 per cent gross enrolment rate by 2015, gender equality in access to education opportunities, eradication of adult illiteracy, and improvement of the quality of education.
She said "as it currently stands, Nigeria is not likely to achieve that MDG alongside several others by 2015. Although over the decade through the complementary push by the Federal intervention using the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), we experienced great increases in school enrolments with improvements in gross enrolment rates but big gaps exist between states and regions, and between targeted expectations and real achievements, particularly in reduction of gender disparity and adult illiteracy.
"Even the primary school gross enrolment that had increased over the decade has in recent times, according to the press briefing of the Minister of Education earlier in March this year, following the Education for All Monitoring team Report, began to witness a downward trend.
Worse is what we already knew of state primary completion rates which range from two per cent to 99 per cent. Low completion rates reflect poor learning environments and point to the urgent need to raise teaching standards.
She said based "on the EFA Monitoring Team report, an estimated 61 million children of primary school age do not have access to education globally. Nigeria alone is home to an estimated 10.5 million out-of-school children in 2012 – 3.6 million more than in 2000, or 42 per cent of the primary school-age population. In essence, 17.21 per cent of out-of-school children in the world are Nigerians.
"In another light, one in every six out-of-school children is a Nigerian. Similarly, 6 million of 36 million girls out-of-school worldwide are Nigerians.At a literacy level of 65 per cent, the Executive Secretary disclosed that 35 per cent of Nigeria's population of 160 million are considered to be illiterate.
By estimation, this is about 56 million illiterates needing to become literate for the nation to achieve the MDGs by 2015". The former minister noted that if Nigeria is still struggling to achieve the lowest global common denominator of universal access to basic education and literacy for all citizens, then the nation must realize how much it dents her overall global competitiveness whenever availability of the right talents and skills form a key point of decision for companies choosing their investment destinations.
She also said the most urgent priority problem that must be addressed in the education sector is not funding, adding "the fundamental challenge of education in Nigeria is the many decades of poor sector governance and entrenched dysfunction with no mechanism of accountability and performance. Evidence supports this because in 2006, we analyzed the budgetary trend for the education sector and found an incredulous inverse relationship between more budget allocation and performance of pupils and students.
"The analysis showed that the more the budget of a given year to the sector, the lower the academic achievement of the students at both state and federal levels. It was that finding that fueled my resolve to lead a root and branch reform of a deeply dysfunctional system.
Therefore, if any government at all levels simply chose to throw more money at a dysfunctional system, rather than addressing the systemic, structural and institutional bottlenecks in the sector, it will ultimately discover that more throwing more money at a problem does not solve it.
"The transparency, accountability, effective and efficient use of resources allocated to education is fundamental to perhaps one of the most important political economy issue in the management of the sector at every level in our nation. We had started to tackle this by introducing a programme of transparency of public spending in education known as Community Accountability and Transparency Initiative (CATI) for both Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and all federally funded tertiary institutions.
"The transparency measures were necessary to improve the actual investment in the priorities that are important for improving learning outcomes at the individual school or institutions level. We desperately need to index any talk of budget increases for education to those activities that help improve students learning performance and not the current deformity or poor structure and composition of priorities in the allocation of scarce resources. That kind of mutual accountability by the sector, governments and the public is possible through mechanisms like CATI".
She noted that the education sector must be regarded by economic managers as the most important sector for generating inclusive growth for any society, insisting the greatest champions of the education sector should be the economic leaders and that seems to be what is happening in Lagos State, stressing, "Lagos is actually modeling the right approach to education reform and the trend is positive" and applauded the early results the state government has started to record.
Ezekwesili said that the Fashola administration stands out in the unwavering vision, leading the state to ensuring the sustenance of the gradual but steady progress and recovery in the standard of education in Lagos. She appreciated the theme of the summit- "Raising the standards" that it would challenge the prevalent complacency that has seen Nigeria on a race to the bottom on many key indicators of economic and human development.
Opening the two-day event, Governor Fashola gave credit to the success recorded in the education sector by his administration to teachers and administrators in the schools and recalled his first meeting with the commissioner for education and her team three years ago in which he promised to provide quality education to those that can't afford private schools.
Fashola said that the summit with theme, "Qualitative Education in Lagos State: Raising the Standards" that 51 per cent of Lagosians based on recent survey would send their wards to public schools, adding "we are training our teachers to improve on the performance.
"Result shows that from 2007 till now that our education is moving in the right direction. If we do not give the next generation quality education, they will suffer. The summit will assist government to achieve result". In her address, Education Commissioner, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye, said the gathering of stakeholders would help the state government to improve on service delivery in the sector, noting "we have continued to use the Lagos State Education Summit to generate new ideas that will take the education sector to new heights".
She said the Fashola administration has continued to accord education top priority and revealed that government has rehabilitated and constructed new classrooms, distributed free textbooks; provide well equipped laboratories and libraries, buses for teachers and students, implementation of teachers' salary scale and regular salary payment.
Via: Sun News Online