COVID-19: Our education’s presently directionless, but…- Odoh

Former Secretary to the State Government (SSG) in Ebonyi State and professor of Geo-Physics, Benard Odoh, has identified wrong channelling of resources and budgeted funds for the education sector as a major hindrance to achieving success in the sector, revealing that “education is presently directionless in Nigeria”.
Speaking yesterday during a virtual conference organised by the Nigerian Youth Congress (NYC), a reputable youth leadership organisation, in conjunction with the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Youths Affairs, Professor Odoh said that the education sector needs to be restructured; in order to put it in the right footing.
He added that, in the post COVID-19 era, if Nigeria puts its education structure in the right place and resolves some of the issues, it would get the right results in the sector.
“Most of our spendings in education are not going where it should go to. And when most of the money budgeted are spent in the wrong direction, you don’t get the right result. We need to restructure because our education right now is not known to be geared towards a particular direction,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Minister of State for Education, Hon. Emeka Nwajiuba, hinted about the plan of the Federal Government to re-open schools across the country after four months lockdown; occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking on the topic: “Quality Education in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Institutions; The Challenges of COVID-19: The way forward”, Nwajiuba disclosed that the Ministry plans to re-scale its calendar to by bringing those already in their exiting years back to the classrooms first before others.
While counselling each state of the federation to, first of all, conduct a baseline survey to understudy and understand how best to tackle its education challenges, the minister rued the poor quality of teaching staff in both public and private sectors in the nation’s education.
He further narrated that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has almost bent itself backwards to borrow money; in order to solve the problem of out-of-school children in the North Eastern part of the country.
“We plan to re-scale our calendar, first, by bringing those already about exiting schools back to the classroom before we bring others back. This will help the government achieve social distancing, especially to help tackle the pandemic.”
He said some teachers in the private schools have written the Ministry over their pitiable plights of non-payment of salaries by their employers following the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are trying to see if we can provide them with some palliatives,” he disclosed.
Similarly, the Governor of Nassarawa State, Engr. Abdullahi Sule, who had spoken on how his government has tried to tackle the rut in the education sector, disclosed that his government, upon inauguration, had invited the UNESCO to help the state revisit its curriculum before conducting a proper baseline test for the education sector in the state to understand its basic needs.

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