University Don Harps on Measures to Improve Nigeria’s Education Sector

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

A retiring lecturer with the department of Finance and Banking of Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Prof Prince Nwakanma, has urged the federal government to regard the universities as strategic assets to economic development of the nation.

Nwakanma said education should be seen as a wealth creation process, adding that if the people are educationally equipped by the government, the issue of threatening poverty and instability of the economy will the tackled.

The university don made this assertion during his valedictory lecture held at the institution premises recently. He urged the federal to improve the education sector by tackling all the challenges bedeviling it, which he said has led to several strike actions by university managements across the country.

Speaking on the topic ‘Crises in Nigeria’s Federal Universities: Is Cash the Culprit’, Nwakanma said the perception of university degree and diplomas of other institutions of higher learning as a meal ticket and status symbol fuelled corruption in the country.

He observed that “the attitude of seeing education as a mere commodity for consumption has persisted till date. What the society got was a crop of educated elites not so skilled in the practice of wealth creation. Consequently, they became victims of pseudo educated that viewed education strictly as a status symbol and a meal ticket.

“Rather than appreciate the virtues of education as an instrument for improving human functionings they saw it as something that had the potentials to make them rich.”

Nwakanma advised further that education should be seen as a wealth creating process whereby the more people are equipped to create, the more the available resources will be expanded. He said the outcome will tackle the problem of funding education and reducing poverty.

He assured that when the economy “is prospering, and everybody is involved in the process of growing that prosperity, then the issue of growing poverty will now be something that can be dealt with,” adding that with this the number of persons living in abject poverty will keep on diminishing, because they will get involved in the creation of the food basket.”