Atiku: Huge budget can’t resolve Boko Haram crisis

Delivering a lecture on ‘Rebuilding Public Education as a Bridge to Nigeria’s Future’, Atiku also what he called erroneous impression that educational problems would be resolved when adequate funds were made available.   “I have deliberately failed to emphasize the issue of adequate funding for our education.  This is partly because all too often we […]

Delivering a lecture on ‘Rebuilding Public Education as a Bridge to Nigeria’s Future’, Atiku also what he called erroneous impression that educational problems would be resolved when adequate funds were made available.

 

“I have deliberately failed to emphasize the issue of adequate funding for our education.  This is partly because all too often we seem to believe that throwing money at problems will somehow magically solve them.  But problems that are widespread and which have festered for a very long time cannot be solved simply by throwing money at them.  With all the money being thrown at security problem, why have we not solved the Boko Haram crisis?. Americans call such a thoughtless practice ‘throwing good money after bad’.

“We must make the structural, institutional and policy changes that are crying out for attention.  As we do those and engage in proper planning we shall have a better sense of the resources that are needed for our educational rebirth, what we can afford and the best way to deploy them – as a country, state or locality as the case may be,” he said.

Atiku, who noted the complaints from the employers of labour on poor quality of the Nigerian graduates and school leavers, said the International Labour Organisation’s latest estimate showed that 75 million young unemployed people are now in Nigeria at a time when thousands of jobs cannot be filled because of the scarcity of requisite skills in the available graduates.

He, therefore, stressed the need for regulation to maintain quality of education amid current situation whereby enrolment and admission had not kept up with the population growth.

To address the current challenges facing Nigeria’s educational sector, Atiku proposed the institution of free and compulsory primary and secondary education across the country, with the Federal Government providing support for states that agree to abide by the policy and meet set standards.

He also proposed for decentralization that will concede education as a responsibility of state/regional and local governments with the Federal Government, at best, setting standards and providing financial support.