Nigeria’s education sector must turn out graduates fit for labour market – Sanwo-Olu
Gov. Sanwo-Olu of Lagos
Published By: Kazeem Ugbodaga
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday charged educators in the education sector to ensure they turn out graduates that are fit for the labour market.
The governor spoke at the 67th National Council on Education (NCE) Meeting held in Ikeja, Lagos.
The theme of the NCE meeting is ”Addressing the Challenges of Policy Implementation: A Panacea for the Achievement of Education 2030 Agenda”.
Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by Mr Jamiu Alli-Balogun, the Lagos State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, said that the NCE is a major stakeholders’ forum designed to brainstorm and collectively articulate ideas, towards improving education service delivery of the country.
”As we jointly deliberate on critical issues pertaining to the educational development of our children with the intention of proffering lasting solutions to identified problems.
”I seize this opportunity to remind us all, either as career professionals or elected officials to expand our thoughts and strive to produce self-reliant youths through our educational system.
”We must re-engineer and repositioned our education policy making and implementation strategy to deliver graduate students who will blend with the labour market demand.
”It is in pursuit of this goal, that, we are here gathered as stakeholders to exchange ideas and agree on some proposed reforms,” he said.
The governor said that theme of the NCE meeting was apt as its gave an avenue to co-create and collaborate towards enhancing quality of teaching and learning.
He said that this would provide more refined educational models and proffering lasting solutions to the challenges of policy formulation in the education sector.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejo, who was represented by Mrs Obianuju Anigbogu, the Director, Educational Planning, Research and Development (EPR&D), Federal Ministry of Education, said that there was the need to ensure proper implementation of education policies, for a robust sector.
The theme ”Addressing the Challenges of Policy Implementation: A Panacea for the Achievement of Education 2030 Agenda” is apt in view of the fact that our policies are usually well-crafted, but are faced with ineffective implementation,” he said.
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The permanent secretary said that the educational policies faced delay and lack of regular review to reflect national needs and aspirations, lack of consistent monitoring and evaluation to checkmate policy implementation.
”When policies that guide a nation are not implemented at the appropriate time the consequences are backwardness, under development, unemployment for graduates, poverty, insecurity, etc.
”However, in order to tackle the challenges of policy implementation all hands must be on deck,” Adejo said.
According to him, over the years, successive governments have been confronted with numerous challenges which majorly centres on paucity of funds for funding education programmes and activities.
He, however, said that both the Federal Government and many state governments had began to prioritise funding education, as witnessed in the budget estimates, already before the National Assembly and some state governments.
The permanent secretary hoped other states would also emulate such budgetary example for the good of the nation.
”It is not enough to have adequate funds to show positive improvement in our education sector, we must all commit to put in our best to ensure that programmes are delivered appropriately to reach the desired beneficiaries.
”To make policies more concrete and valuable, policy implementers; curriculum planners; curriculum developers and policy-makers must imbibe realistic policies that the country’s education makes them less dependent on others for survival by analysing reliable factors that obstruct or accelerate the implementation process.
”Effective monitoring and evaluation of National Council on Education (NCE) Decisions has also been identified as a game-changer in actualising policies, this will not only make our educational system functional but globally competitive,” he said.
Adejo urged stakeholders make meaningful contributions that would proffer possible ways of addressing the challenges facing effective policy implementation in the education sector and also push the sector towards the achievement of education 2030 Agenda.
