Ndoma Egba: Our Education Should Be Tailored Towards Job Creation

Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja

The Chairman, Advisory Board of Start Rite Schools (SRS), Senator Victor Ndoma Egba, has advised Nigerian schools to embrace entrepreneurial system of education in

order to produce job creators rather than job-seekers.

He stated this at the weekend in an interview on the sidelines of the graduation/15th anniversary of Start Rite Schools, in Abuja.

The former senator stated that the era of training students to become job seekers was no longer fashionable, stressing that we are presently in the era of schools training entrepreneurs who would create jobs rather than seek jobs.

He said: “Education for jobs is going out of fashion; we are now in an era where we have education for creating jobs. Our education today must be geared towards creating jobs not seeking jobs.

“And that is why we are working with the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to see if we can introduce entrepreneurship, and by the time we have trained our students in entrepreneurship, they will go into the world not seeking jobs, but creating jobs for others.”

Ndoma-Egba also noted that with the right investment in the public schools, they would be able to compete favourably with private schools in terms of academic excellence.

“I went to public schools (Catholic mission schools), and they were one of the best. We had possibilities in public schools in the past and we can reenact it and we can still bring the standard we experienced in the 60s, 70s and the part of the 80s.

“You will recall that federal government colleges that are public schools are among the best in the country. They produced the best who competed with their peers across the globe.

“With proper investment in education, I believe that every child deserves education irrespective of their social status. So we must ensure that we give enough funding to education, because the wealth of a nation is not in her natural resources but human resources,” he said.

In his address, the keynote speaker, Prof. Oka Obono, advised the graduating students to change the current narrative in the country where contracts are abandoned all over the place, and to also change the attitude of thinking about the immediate benefits only, without thinking of the future benefit.

“There are too many abandoned projects in Nigeria and your generation must put an end to it. And you must learn to plant fruits that are not of immediate benefit to you; fruits that will take 50 years or more to produce for others to benefit.

“You do the right things intentionally, tenaciously and efficiently too. Just like creation, you have to restore and replenish the society,” he admonished.

The Principal, Start Rite Schools, Femi Akinlade, said at SRS, officials are after the greater good of their students and are more concerned about their impact on the society, adding that, “at the SRS, we give the best in terms of academics and morals but our greatest concern is their impact on society.”

A parent, Mrs. Juli Abaribe, said the school was of great academic excellence and moral standard.

She said: “You can’t compare what you are paying on your child to the value you are getting here. They train your child academically and morally, and as a parent, I am very proud to say my child is a product of this great school.”