Corona College Advocates Functional Educational System to Produce Self-reliant Citizens
Uchechukwu Nnaike
The Corona College of Education (CCED) has called on the federal government to work towards developing a functional educational system that would make Nigerians self-reliant.
It made the call at its fifth public lecture in Lagos to address the ills in the education system, which was themed ‘Education for Self-reliance in Nigeria: A Placebo?’ and examined the current state of the education system in Nigeria, proffering possible solutions that can affect the system positively.
The guest lecturer, Dr. Peter Bamkole, a mechanical engineer and Director, Enterprise Development Centre, Pan Atlantic University, said the value of education can never be overestimated, just as the dangers of ignorance.
He added that education is pertinent to the development of any nation and said that education in Nigeria is not a placebo but a lot of work has to be done by stakeholders for it not to be seen as a placebo.
According to him, “We have been accustomed to think of education in terms of restrictive labels of law, engineering, mathematics, and medicine, among others.
These are careers that are conservative and, more often than not, require the beneficiary to seek paid employment.”
Stressing that with the depressing economy worldwide, “white-collar jobs are now very difficult to come by. Rather, what we witness today is high rate of retrenchment in the private and public sectors, resulting in an ever-increasing army of unemployed youth. With the depression in the labour market, education should now be tailored towards the acquisition of skills and abilities that can make the individual a productive and self-reliant member of society.”
The Chairman, Corona College of Education Governing Council, Dr. Alero Roberts, discussed the validity of the topic in relation to the current reality of the education system in Nigeria and advised that values have to be in view to correct the challenges in the system.
“Today’s lecture is quite laudable and in consonance with the present reality, ideals and values of the educational system in Nigeria. Indeed, I find the topic a very fascinating one as the celebration of ill-gotten gains have made the youths lose hope in education which they have labeled a scam. It is therefore pertinent for stakeholders in education to reexamine the values of our educational system with the view to surmount the current societal challenges.”
The Provost of the college, Dr. Olajumoke Mekiliuwa, said that the public lecture has run consistently for the fifth time and the topic was chosen to capture the numerous challenges confronting the nation’s educational institutions, from primary, secondary to tertiary schools, in recent times.
She stated that technical and vocational education remained the key to the development of the country, explaining that entrepreneurship education and training had been acknowledged globally as a vital strategy for tackling youth unemployment.
According to her, the lecture was designed to generate discourses around pertinent issues in education with the effect of galvanising sustainable change in the education sector in Nigeria.
Mekiliuwa noted that the education sector is a determining factor of change for the development of any country not just Nigeria but Africa as a whole.
“Government should embrace more action and less talk in solving the problems of education which include, but not limited to, lack of innovation, lack of infrastructure and teaching aids, poor funding, and governance,” she stated.
