Former minister of state for education, Dr. Jerry Agada, is the
chairman, Advisory Board of President’s Schools Debate of Nigeria. In this
interview with UCHE UDUMA, he speaks on some of the issues that have weakened
the education system in Nigeria and proffers solutions. He also faults the
notion that graduates of Nigerian universities are unemployable.
What have you been doing since you left office as the minister of
education?
I have been doing so many things since then. I have served as the board
chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) until the time
that the government decided to dissolve all the boards. But even before then, I
have been engaged in literary activities. I have a foundation known as Jerry
Agada Foundation. The foundation propagates reading, writing and such other
activities. Apart from that, I am a politician - I am the secretary of Benue
State PDP Elder’s Forum. I am currently the chairman of the advisory board of
President’s School’s Debate of Nigeria. And I am the vice chairman of the
advisory board, Nigeria Prize for Literature - Prof Ayo Banju is the chairman.
So now that I am out of office I have time to do my other activities,
especially in reading and writing which is my passion.
CLOs recently scored Nigeria poor in education; having been at the
helm of affairs in the education sector, what have you identified as causes for
the dearth of world-class education in Nigeria?
So many variables are responsible. All along, there has never been a time
that they will say that there are no problems in the education sector in
Nigeria. We have all the time been working towards reversing that phenomenon so
that things will go better. If you talk about ranking of universities the world
over, you will discover that Nigerian universities are poorly ranked. Everyday
what you hear is falling standard of education, but as an educationist, as one
who has seen it all - because I have been a classroom teacher, school
principal, executive secretary in an examinations board, permanent secretary,
Ministry of Education, until I was appointed the minister of education. So you
can see that, all along, my foundation has been rooted in education.
Some of the things I have found to be responsible for the poor standard of
education in the country are factors such as poor funding, poor facilities and
lack of quality teachers. UNESCO said that in every country’s annual budget, at
least 25 per cent of that budget should be expended on education, so that there
will be a chunk of money for educational matters. Do we that in Nigeria?
Sometimes when you hear that 11 percent of the annual budget is taken to the
education, you will say that they have tried, but at the end of the day, do
they release that money? At the end of the budgetary year, you will discover
that not all that was allocated that actually got released for the sector.
Therefore, you will see that things continue to go bad instead of improving. If
you go to the universities that we talk about, some of them are like glorified
secondary schools. You need standard laboratories, standard libraries; do we
have them in our universities. It is not just enough to have a building with a
sign board that says university of this or that and you enter it and come out
then you say you are a graduate.
Even the students that go to these universities, how well are they prepared,
right from the primary, secondary up until the time they go to the
tertiary level. I don’t know if it is the use of ICT that is responsible, but
some of they don’t bother to read. One of the reasons why there is falling
standard of education in the country is because of people’s inability to read.
At the time Oby Ezekwesili came to the ministry of education as the
minister, when you heard about the much talked-about reforms in the education
sector. When they were doing these reforms, one of the findings from the
researches they did was that there was mass failure in exams because people do
not read. That was why when I was a minister of state for education, I launched
a campaign called the ‘National Action Committee on Read Campaign’. Therefore,
the crux of the whole matter in terms of falling education is centred on
people’s inability or unwillingness to read.
Over time, there have been reforms in the education sector, however,
time and again the reforms have failed; what is responsible for this?
If you are doing reforms, it must go with proper funding. I was listening to
a radio programme where the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) was
talking about their grounds to call off the strike; they said that government
should make available the result of visitation panel that they set up to go to
these institutions sometime ago. Somebody was saying that the reason why
government is not releasing it or implementing is that government on its part
was indicted. These facilities are not there. For things to be turned around,
government should provide them.
There is no level of education in Nigeria that they are not talking of poor
funding. So that one can be a factor that has militated against the
implementation of whatever they have found out to be responsible for the
falling standard of education in terms of doing the reforms.
Even with the additional funding by TETFund and ETF, Nigerian
universities seem to be lagging behind in inventions, especially in medicine
and agriculture; why is this so?
I want to make it clear that because we have things like Tertiary Education
Trust Fund (TETFund) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) does not mean that much
money is available for the universities. You have so many universities
competing for the money that is made available for TETFUND, so no matter how
plenty that money is, anyone that is allocated to universities must be shared
among the universities. So it is still not enough. Even if TETFund is there,
forget about the federal universities, there are private universities, there
are state universities - TETFund extends to them. Therefore there are a lot
mouths waiting to consume whatever largesse that is coming out from TETFund.
Then of course there are other things like corruption; it is one of the things
that have brought many developmental aspirations down. You hear of stories of
how EFCC is running after some VCs and after some other people as a result of
misapplication, even if not misappropriation. So there are so many factors
responsible for this.
Nigerian university lecturers and professors disappoint me in the sense
that, as intellectuals, they cannot use this intellectualism to design
something. Must you get everything through strike? If you say you are an
intellectual, use your idealism to think out a way of getting what you want
from the government without necessarily embarking on strike.
Our people go to study abroad and even Ghana, are they always on
strike as we are in Nigeria?
There is no university Professor or VC in Nigeria that has not studied in
universities abroad, as a result of undertaking sabbatical there or what have
you. Can they not see the system those people are using in those places that is
causing them not to go on strike? Or are they telling me that whatever those
people say they want, government always throws it to them? Even if government
doesn’t, they have their other ways of getting what they want, not necessarily
using strike. So I challenge them in the universities system that if they want
to show us that they are intellectuals, let them use their intelligence to
think out something from the government instead of always embarking on strike,
subjecting our children to undue stress.
When a student is supposed to be in school for a course she will do for
three, four years, he stays there for eight years - that is not the best. Their
staying in school for eight years does not mean that they are getting the
quality education that you will want them to have, because they are at home on
strike and as soon as it is announced that universities have resumed, they go
for exam, and as soon as that exam is finished they go on strike - which time
do they use to lecture? On the whole, nothing is going properly. I am saying
this because you said money is available from TETFund but they are not doing
research in terms of bringing out innovation and inventions in agriculture and
medicine. Those ones are even too far; what of the ones the strike has done?
There is a conglomeration of problems in our universities.
A Federal Executive Council committee recently suggested that
research institutes across the country should be attached to universities; do
you think it is a good idea?
It is part of the totality of that recommendation, but what I can say is
that they can’t do these things at the expense of education. If you want to
reduce cost in governance by merging two different organization that are
performing two different functions, are you therefore saying that the people who
sat and wrote the Act establishing these institutions in the first place do not
know what they are doing? If you are reducing governance by merging and
it is not done properly, what advantages are you getting from it? What is
government in the first place? Government is not an entity on its own going
this way, and the people are on their own going another way; government is the
act of bringing people together for the purpose of making sure that things go
well in a place. Therefore, you can’t save money for government and you want to
leave people to suffer by merging places that are not supposed to be merged.
That’s why when they talk about scrapping NECO and JAMB I criticized them
because as far as I am concerned, those places, like NECO for instance, it has
its own reason for coming up. I remember, before it was set up, there were a
lot of cries all over the place that WAEC was not doing well, that there were a
lot of exam malpractices, that people’s result were not being released.
Government then set up an alternative exam body to compete with WAEC.
That was how NECO came in. That time, all these people in the government
that are talking about scrapping of agencies didn’t even know what was going
on. Now these things have become well, instead of finding ways to standardize
it to make them more competent, they want to scrap them - I don’t subscribe to
that. It is the same thing with research institutes, if they feel they should
be merged to universities to reduce cost, they should also know that as they are
reducing cost, will that reduction produce the kind of result we want? If it
will, fine, if it will not, you better let them stay, so that they will be
performing their jobs.
In the first place, the reason why the research institutes existed is for
the concentration of powers or ideas in what they know to do best, which is
research. But if you want to take them to the universities, because you feel
universities are supposed to be centres of research and they don’t have
facilities, are now expecting the research institutes to dissipate whatever
knowledge or power that they have. It is like you cooked a delicious soup, then
you poured water into it in order for it to reach everybody.
Nigerian universities have been criticized for churning out
graduates that are unemployable; how big a problem is this?
Well, they said so - that they produce graduates that are unemployable, to
me the statement is too sweeping. If they said Nigerian graduates are not
employable, what of those that have been employed and they are doing their work
very well. The only thing is that we are talking of the majority. We are
talking about the type of curriculum that can make people come out of the
university system and be on their own instead of waiting for white-collar jobs.
I think that is what the people are saying, but to say that they are producing
people that are unemployable to me is not correct. If they are producing people
that are not tilted towards a particular profession, maybe they can advance
provision in their curriculum to include other things in the curriculum that
can make them that. It is not just people talking about vocation and technical,
are the materials available to give that required training? Will everybody be
in vocation and technical? Which course will you tell me that is useless in the
Nigeria universities? Is it history, geography or chemistry? The most important
thing is that any one you are studying, study it well and you can excel in it.
Everybody is employable; the only thing is do more, so that if graduates are
plenty in a particular area, as a result of what they have learnt in
development of curriculum, including vocational and technical training, maybe
they can be on their own. In every part of the world, you have unemployment all
over; it is the way you handle your own that matters.
Source: LEADERSHIP
Former
minister of state for education, Dr. Jerry Agada, is the chairman,
Advisory Board of President’s Schools Debate of Nigeria. In this
interview with UCHE UDUMA, he speaks on some of the issues that have
weakened the education system in Nigeria and proffers solutions. He also
faults the notion that graduates of Nigerian universities are
unemployable.
What have you been doing since you left office as the minister of education?
I have been doing so many things since then. I have served as the board chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) until the time that the government decided to dissolve all the boards. But even before then, I have been engaged in literary activities. I have a foundation known as Jerry Agada Foundation. The foundation propagates reading, writing and such other activities. Apart from that, I am a politician - I am the secretary of Benue State PDP Elder’s Forum. I am currently the chairman of the advisory board of President’s School’s Debate of Nigeria. And I am the vice chairman of the advisory board, Nigeria Prize for Literature - Prof Ayo Banju is the chairman. So now that I am out of office I have time to do my other activities, especially in reading and writing which is my passion.
CLOs recently scored Nigeria poor in education; having been at the helm of affairs in the education sector, what have you identified as causes for the dearth of world-class education in Nigeria?
So many variables are responsible. All along, there has never been a time that they will say that there are no problems in the education sector in Nigeria. We have all the time been working towards reversing that phenomenon so that things will go better. If you talk about ranking of universities the world over, you will discover that Nigerian universities are poorly ranked. Everyday what you hear is falling standard of education, but as an educationist, as one who has seen it all - because I have been a classroom teacher, school principal, executive secretary in an examinations board, permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, until I was appointed the minister of education. So you can see that, all along, my foundation has been rooted in education.
Some of the things I have found to be responsible for the poor standard of education in the country are factors such as poor funding, poor facilities and lack of quality teachers. UNESCO said that in every country’s annual budget, at least 25 per cent of that budget should be expended on education, so that there will be a chunk of money for educational matters. Do we that in Nigeria? Sometimes when you hear that 11 percent of the annual budget is taken to the education, you will say that they have tried, but at the end of the day, do they release that money? At the end of the budgetary year, you will discover that not all that was allocated that actually got released for the sector. Therefore, you will see that things continue to go bad instead of improving. If you go to the universities that we talk about, some of them are like glorified secondary schools. You need standard laboratories, standard libraries; do we have them in our universities. It is not just enough to have a building with a sign board that says university of this or that and you enter it and come out then you say you are a graduate.
Even the students that go to these universities, how well are they prepared, right from the primary, secondary up until the time they go to the tertiary level. I don’t know if it is the use of ICT that is responsible, but some of they don’t bother to read. One of the reasons why there is falling standard of education in the country is because of people’s inability to read.
At the time Oby Ezekwesili came to the ministry of education as the minister, when you heard about the much talked-about reforms in the education sector. When they were doing these reforms, one of the findings from the researches they did was that there was mass failure in exams because people do not read. That was why when I was a minister of state for education, I launched a campaign called the ‘National Action Committee on Read Campaign’. Therefore, the crux of the whole matter in terms of falling education is centred on people’s inability or unwillingness to read.
Over time, there have been reforms in the education sector, however, time and again the reforms have failed; what is responsible for this?
If you are doing reforms, it must go with proper funding. I was listening to a radio programme where the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) was talking about their grounds to call off the strike; they said that government should make available the result of visitation panel that they set up to go to these institutions sometime ago. Somebody was saying that the reason why government is not releasing it or implementing is that government on its part was indicted. These facilities are not there. For things to be turned around, government should provide them.
There is no level of education in Nigeria that they are not talking of poor funding. So that one can be a factor that has militated against the implementation of whatever they have found out to be responsible for the falling standard of education in terms of doing the reforms.
Even with the additional funding by TETFund and ETF, Nigerian universities seem to be lagging behind in inventions, especially in medicine and agriculture; why is this so?
I want to make it clear that because we have things like Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) does not mean that much money is available for the universities. You have so many universities competing for the money that is made available for TETFUND, so no matter how plenty that money is, anyone that is allocated to universities must be shared among the universities. So it is still not enough. Even if TETFund is there, forget about the federal universities, there are private universities, there are state universities - TETFund extends to them. Therefore there are a lot mouths waiting to consume whatever largesse that is coming out from TETFund. Then of course there are other things like corruption; it is one of the things that have brought many developmental aspirations down. You hear of stories of how EFCC is running after some VCs and after some other people as a result of misapplication, even if not misappropriation. So there are so many factors responsible for this.
Nigerian university lecturers and professors disappoint me in the sense that, as intellectuals, they cannot use this intellectualism to design something. Must you get everything through strike? If you say you are an intellectual, use your idealism to think out a way of getting what you want from the government without necessarily embarking on strike.
Our people go to study abroad and even Ghana, are they always on strike as we are in Nigeria?
There is no university Professor or VC in Nigeria that has not studied in universities abroad, as a result of undertaking sabbatical there or what have you. Can they not see the system those people are using in those places that is causing them not to go on strike? Or are they telling me that whatever those people say they want, government always throws it to them? Even if government doesn’t, they have their other ways of getting what they want, not necessarily using strike. So I challenge them in the universities system that if they want to show us that they are intellectuals, let them use their intelligence to think out something from the government instead of always embarking on strike, subjecting our children to undue stress.
When a student is supposed to be in school for a course she will do for three, four years, he stays there for eight years - that is not the best. Their staying in school for eight years does not mean that they are getting the quality education that you will want them to have, because they are at home on strike and as soon as it is announced that universities have resumed, they go for exam, and as soon as that exam is finished they go on strike - which time do they use to lecture? On the whole, nothing is going properly. I am saying this because you said money is available from TETFund but they are not doing research in terms of bringing out innovation and inventions in agriculture and medicine. Those ones are even too far; what of the ones the strike has done? There is a conglomeration of problems in our universities.
A Federal Executive Council committee recently suggested that research institutes across the country should be attached to universities; do you think it is a good idea?
It is part of the totality of that recommendation, but what I can say is that they can’t do these things at the expense of education. If you want to reduce cost in governance by merging two different organization that are performing two different functions, are you therefore saying that the people who sat and wrote the Act establishing these institutions in the first place do not know what they are doing? If you are reducing governance by merging and it is not done properly, what advantages are you getting from it? What is government in the first place? Government is not an entity on its own going this way, and the people are on their own going another way; government is the act of bringing people together for the purpose of making sure that things go well in a place. Therefore, you can’t save money for government and you want to leave people to suffer by merging places that are not supposed to be merged. That’s why when they talk about scrapping NECO and JAMB I criticized them because as far as I am concerned, those places, like NECO for instance, it has its own reason for coming up. I remember, before it was set up, there were a lot of cries all over the place that WAEC was not doing well, that there were a lot of exam malpractices, that people’s result were not being released. Government then set up an alternative exam body to compete with WAEC.
That was how NECO came in. That time, all these people in the government that are talking about scrapping of agencies didn’t even know what was going on. Now these things have become well, instead of finding ways to standardize it to make them more competent, they want to scrap them - I don’t subscribe to that. It is the same thing with research institutes, if they feel they should be merged to universities to reduce cost, they should also know that as they are reducing cost, will that reduction produce the kind of result we want? If it will, fine, if it will not, you better let them stay, so that they will be performing their jobs.
In the first place, the reason why the research institutes existed is for the concentration of powers or ideas in what they know to do best, which is research. But if you want to take them to the universities, because you feel universities are supposed to be centres of research and they don’t have facilities, are now expecting the research institutes to dissipate whatever knowledge or power that they have. It is like you cooked a delicious soup, then you poured water into it in order for it to reach everybody.
Nigerian universities have been criticized for churning out graduates that are unemployable; how big a problem is this?
Well, they said so - that they produce graduates that are unemployable, to me the statement is too sweeping. If they said Nigerian graduates are not employable, what of those that have been employed and they are doing their work very well. The only thing is that we are talking of the majority. We are talking about the type of curriculum that can make people come out of the university system and be on their own instead of waiting for white-collar jobs. I think that is what the people are saying, but to say that they are producing people that are unemployable to me is not correct. If they are producing people that are not tilted towards a particular profession, maybe they can advance provision in their curriculum to include other things in the curriculum that can make them that. It is not just people talking about vocation and technical, are the materials available to give that required training? Will everybody be in vocation and technical? Which course will you tell me that is useless in the Nigeria universities? Is it history, geography or chemistry? The most important thing is that any one you are studying, study it well and you can excel in it. Everybody is employable; the only thing is do more, so that if graduates are plenty in a particular area, as a result of what they have learnt in development of curriculum, including vocational and technical training, maybe they can be on their own. In every part of the world, you have unemployment all over; it is the way you handle your own that matters.
- See more at: http://leadership.ng/news/210813/nigerian-graduates-are-employable-agada#sthash.9BiY9lF3.dpuf
What have you been doing since you left office as the minister of education?
I have been doing so many things since then. I have served as the board chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) until the time that the government decided to dissolve all the boards. But even before then, I have been engaged in literary activities. I have a foundation known as Jerry Agada Foundation. The foundation propagates reading, writing and such other activities. Apart from that, I am a politician - I am the secretary of Benue State PDP Elder’s Forum. I am currently the chairman of the advisory board of President’s School’s Debate of Nigeria. And I am the vice chairman of the advisory board, Nigeria Prize for Literature - Prof Ayo Banju is the chairman. So now that I am out of office I have time to do my other activities, especially in reading and writing which is my passion.
CLOs recently scored Nigeria poor in education; having been at the helm of affairs in the education sector, what have you identified as causes for the dearth of world-class education in Nigeria?
So many variables are responsible. All along, there has never been a time that they will say that there are no problems in the education sector in Nigeria. We have all the time been working towards reversing that phenomenon so that things will go better. If you talk about ranking of universities the world over, you will discover that Nigerian universities are poorly ranked. Everyday what you hear is falling standard of education, but as an educationist, as one who has seen it all - because I have been a classroom teacher, school principal, executive secretary in an examinations board, permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, until I was appointed the minister of education. So you can see that, all along, my foundation has been rooted in education.
Some of the things I have found to be responsible for the poor standard of education in the country are factors such as poor funding, poor facilities and lack of quality teachers. UNESCO said that in every country’s annual budget, at least 25 per cent of that budget should be expended on education, so that there will be a chunk of money for educational matters. Do we that in Nigeria? Sometimes when you hear that 11 percent of the annual budget is taken to the education, you will say that they have tried, but at the end of the day, do they release that money? At the end of the budgetary year, you will discover that not all that was allocated that actually got released for the sector. Therefore, you will see that things continue to go bad instead of improving. If you go to the universities that we talk about, some of them are like glorified secondary schools. You need standard laboratories, standard libraries; do we have them in our universities. It is not just enough to have a building with a sign board that says university of this or that and you enter it and come out then you say you are a graduate.
Even the students that go to these universities, how well are they prepared, right from the primary, secondary up until the time they go to the tertiary level. I don’t know if it is the use of ICT that is responsible, but some of they don’t bother to read. One of the reasons why there is falling standard of education in the country is because of people’s inability to read.
At the time Oby Ezekwesili came to the ministry of education as the minister, when you heard about the much talked-about reforms in the education sector. When they were doing these reforms, one of the findings from the researches they did was that there was mass failure in exams because people do not read. That was why when I was a minister of state for education, I launched a campaign called the ‘National Action Committee on Read Campaign’. Therefore, the crux of the whole matter in terms of falling education is centred on people’s inability or unwillingness to read.
Over time, there have been reforms in the education sector, however, time and again the reforms have failed; what is responsible for this?
If you are doing reforms, it must go with proper funding. I was listening to a radio programme where the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) was talking about their grounds to call off the strike; they said that government should make available the result of visitation panel that they set up to go to these institutions sometime ago. Somebody was saying that the reason why government is not releasing it or implementing is that government on its part was indicted. These facilities are not there. For things to be turned around, government should provide them.
There is no level of education in Nigeria that they are not talking of poor funding. So that one can be a factor that has militated against the implementation of whatever they have found out to be responsible for the falling standard of education in terms of doing the reforms.
Even with the additional funding by TETFund and ETF, Nigerian universities seem to be lagging behind in inventions, especially in medicine and agriculture; why is this so?
I want to make it clear that because we have things like Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) does not mean that much money is available for the universities. You have so many universities competing for the money that is made available for TETFUND, so no matter how plenty that money is, anyone that is allocated to universities must be shared among the universities. So it is still not enough. Even if TETFund is there, forget about the federal universities, there are private universities, there are state universities - TETFund extends to them. Therefore there are a lot mouths waiting to consume whatever largesse that is coming out from TETFund. Then of course there are other things like corruption; it is one of the things that have brought many developmental aspirations down. You hear of stories of how EFCC is running after some VCs and after some other people as a result of misapplication, even if not misappropriation. So there are so many factors responsible for this.
Nigerian university lecturers and professors disappoint me in the sense that, as intellectuals, they cannot use this intellectualism to design something. Must you get everything through strike? If you say you are an intellectual, use your idealism to think out a way of getting what you want from the government without necessarily embarking on strike.
Our people go to study abroad and even Ghana, are they always on strike as we are in Nigeria?
There is no university Professor or VC in Nigeria that has not studied in universities abroad, as a result of undertaking sabbatical there or what have you. Can they not see the system those people are using in those places that is causing them not to go on strike? Or are they telling me that whatever those people say they want, government always throws it to them? Even if government doesn’t, they have their other ways of getting what they want, not necessarily using strike. So I challenge them in the universities system that if they want to show us that they are intellectuals, let them use their intelligence to think out something from the government instead of always embarking on strike, subjecting our children to undue stress.
When a student is supposed to be in school for a course she will do for three, four years, he stays there for eight years - that is not the best. Their staying in school for eight years does not mean that they are getting the quality education that you will want them to have, because they are at home on strike and as soon as it is announced that universities have resumed, they go for exam, and as soon as that exam is finished they go on strike - which time do they use to lecture? On the whole, nothing is going properly. I am saying this because you said money is available from TETFund but they are not doing research in terms of bringing out innovation and inventions in agriculture and medicine. Those ones are even too far; what of the ones the strike has done? There is a conglomeration of problems in our universities.
A Federal Executive Council committee recently suggested that research institutes across the country should be attached to universities; do you think it is a good idea?
It is part of the totality of that recommendation, but what I can say is that they can’t do these things at the expense of education. If you want to reduce cost in governance by merging two different organization that are performing two different functions, are you therefore saying that the people who sat and wrote the Act establishing these institutions in the first place do not know what they are doing? If you are reducing governance by merging and it is not done properly, what advantages are you getting from it? What is government in the first place? Government is not an entity on its own going this way, and the people are on their own going another way; government is the act of bringing people together for the purpose of making sure that things go well in a place. Therefore, you can’t save money for government and you want to leave people to suffer by merging places that are not supposed to be merged. That’s why when they talk about scrapping NECO and JAMB I criticized them because as far as I am concerned, those places, like NECO for instance, it has its own reason for coming up. I remember, before it was set up, there were a lot of cries all over the place that WAEC was not doing well, that there were a lot of exam malpractices, that people’s result were not being released. Government then set up an alternative exam body to compete with WAEC.
That was how NECO came in. That time, all these people in the government that are talking about scrapping of agencies didn’t even know what was going on. Now these things have become well, instead of finding ways to standardize it to make them more competent, they want to scrap them - I don’t subscribe to that. It is the same thing with research institutes, if they feel they should be merged to universities to reduce cost, they should also know that as they are reducing cost, will that reduction produce the kind of result we want? If it will, fine, if it will not, you better let them stay, so that they will be performing their jobs.
In the first place, the reason why the research institutes existed is for the concentration of powers or ideas in what they know to do best, which is research. But if you want to take them to the universities, because you feel universities are supposed to be centres of research and they don’t have facilities, are now expecting the research institutes to dissipate whatever knowledge or power that they have. It is like you cooked a delicious soup, then you poured water into it in order for it to reach everybody.
Nigerian universities have been criticized for churning out graduates that are unemployable; how big a problem is this?
Well, they said so - that they produce graduates that are unemployable, to me the statement is too sweeping. If they said Nigerian graduates are not employable, what of those that have been employed and they are doing their work very well. The only thing is that we are talking of the majority. We are talking about the type of curriculum that can make people come out of the university system and be on their own instead of waiting for white-collar jobs. I think that is what the people are saying, but to say that they are producing people that are unemployable to me is not correct. If they are producing people that are not tilted towards a particular profession, maybe they can advance provision in their curriculum to include other things in the curriculum that can make them that. It is not just people talking about vocation and technical, are the materials available to give that required training? Will everybody be in vocation and technical? Which course will you tell me that is useless in the Nigeria universities? Is it history, geography or chemistry? The most important thing is that any one you are studying, study it well and you can excel in it. Everybody is employable; the only thing is do more, so that if graduates are plenty in a particular area, as a result of what they have learnt in development of curriculum, including vocational and technical training, maybe they can be on their own. In every part of the world, you have unemployment all over; it is the way you handle your own that matters.
- See more at: http://leadership.ng/news/210813/nigerian-graduates-are-employable-agada#sthash.9BiY9lF3.dpuf
Former
minister of state for education, Dr. Jerry Agada, is the chairman,
Advisory Board of President’s Schools Debate of Nigeria. In this
interview with UCHE UDUMA, he speaks on some of the issues that have
weakened the education system in Nigeria and proffers solutions. He also
faults the notion that graduates of Nigerian universities are
unemployable.
What have you been doing since you left office as the minister of education?
I have been doing so many things since then. I have served as the board chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) until the time that the government decided to dissolve all the boards. But even before then, I have been engaged in literary activities. I have a foundation known as Jerry Agada Foundation. The foundation propagates reading, writing and such other activities. Apart from that, I am a politician - I am the secretary of Benue State PDP Elder’s Forum. I am currently the chairman of the advisory board of President’s School’s Debate of Nigeria. And I am the vice chairman of the advisory board, Nigeria Prize for Literature - Prof Ayo Banju is the chairman. So now that I am out of office I have time to do my other activities, especially in reading and writing which is my passion.
CLOs recently scored Nigeria poor in education; having been at the helm of affairs in the education sector, what have you identified as causes for the dearth of world-class education in Nigeria?
So many variables are responsible. All along, there has never been a time that they will say that there are no problems in the education sector in Nigeria. We have all the time been working towards reversing that phenomenon so that things will go better. If you talk about ranking of universities the world over, you will discover that Nigerian universities are poorly ranked. Everyday what you hear is falling standard of education, but as an educationist, as one who has seen it all - because I have been a classroom teacher, school principal, executive secretary in an examinations board, permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, until I was appointed the minister of education. So you can see that, all along, my foundation has been rooted in education.
Some of the things I have found to be responsible for the poor standard of education in the country are factors such as poor funding, poor facilities and lack of quality teachers. UNESCO said that in every country’s annual budget, at least 25 per cent of that budget should be expended on education, so that there will be a chunk of money for educational matters. Do we that in Nigeria? Sometimes when you hear that 11 percent of the annual budget is taken to the education, you will say that they have tried, but at the end of the day, do they release that money? At the end of the budgetary year, you will discover that not all that was allocated that actually got released for the sector. Therefore, you will see that things continue to go bad instead of improving. If you go to the universities that we talk about, some of them are like glorified secondary schools. You need standard laboratories, standard libraries; do we have them in our universities. It is not just enough to have a building with a sign board that says university of this or that and you enter it and come out then you say you are a graduate.
Even the students that go to these universities, how well are they prepared, right from the primary, secondary up until the time they go to the tertiary level. I don’t know if it is the use of ICT that is responsible, but some of they don’t bother to read. One of the reasons why there is falling standard of education in the country is because of people’s inability to read.
At the time Oby Ezekwesili came to the ministry of education as the minister, when you heard about the much talked-about reforms in the education sector. When they were doing these reforms, one of the findings from the researches they did was that there was mass failure in exams because people do not read. That was why when I was a minister of state for education, I launched a campaign called the ‘National Action Committee on Read Campaign’. Therefore, the crux of the whole matter in terms of falling education is centred on people’s inability or unwillingness to read.
Over time, there have been reforms in the education sector, however, time and again the reforms have failed; what is responsible for this?
If you are doing reforms, it must go with proper funding. I was listening to a radio programme where the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) was talking about their grounds to call off the strike; they said that government should make available the result of visitation panel that they set up to go to these institutions sometime ago. Somebody was saying that the reason why government is not releasing it or implementing is that government on its part was indicted. These facilities are not there. For things to be turned around, government should provide them.
There is no level of education in Nigeria that they are not talking of poor funding. So that one can be a factor that has militated against the implementation of whatever they have found out to be responsible for the falling standard of education in terms of doing the reforms.
Even with the additional funding by TETFund and ETF, Nigerian universities seem to be lagging behind in inventions, especially in medicine and agriculture; why is this so?
I want to make it clear that because we have things like Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) does not mean that much money is available for the universities. You have so many universities competing for the money that is made available for TETFUND, so no matter how plenty that money is, anyone that is allocated to universities must be shared among the universities. So it is still not enough. Even if TETFund is there, forget about the federal universities, there are private universities, there are state universities - TETFund extends to them. Therefore there are a lot mouths waiting to consume whatever largesse that is coming out from TETFund. Then of course there are other things like corruption; it is one of the things that have brought many developmental aspirations down. You hear of stories of how EFCC is running after some VCs and after some other people as a result of misapplication, even if not misappropriation. So there are so many factors responsible for this.
Nigerian university lecturers and professors disappoint me in the sense that, as intellectuals, they cannot use this intellectualism to design something. Must you get everything through strike? If you say you are an intellectual, use your idealism to think out a way of getting what you want from the government without necessarily embarking on strike.
Our people go to study abroad and even Ghana, are they always on strike as we are in Nigeria?
There is no university Professor or VC in Nigeria that has not studied in universities abroad, as a result of undertaking sabbatical there or what have you. Can they not see the system those people are using in those places that is causing them not to go on strike? Or are they telling me that whatever those people say they want, government always throws it to them? Even if government doesn’t, they have their other ways of getting what they want, not necessarily using strike. So I challenge them in the universities system that if they want to show us that they are intellectuals, let them use their intelligence to think out something from the government instead of always embarking on strike, subjecting our children to undue stress.
When a student is supposed to be in school for a course she will do for three, four years, he stays there for eight years - that is not the best. Their staying in school for eight years does not mean that they are getting the quality education that you will want them to have, because they are at home on strike and as soon as it is announced that universities have resumed, they go for exam, and as soon as that exam is finished they go on strike - which time do they use to lecture? On the whole, nothing is going properly. I am saying this because you said money is available from TETFund but they are not doing research in terms of bringing out innovation and inventions in agriculture and medicine. Those ones are even too far; what of the ones the strike has done? There is a conglomeration of problems in our universities.
A Federal Executive Council committee recently suggested that research institutes across the country should be attached to universities; do you think it is a good idea?
It is part of the totality of that recommendation, but what I can say is that they can’t do these things at the expense of education. If you want to reduce cost in governance by merging two different organization that are performing two different functions, are you therefore saying that the people who sat and wrote the Act establishing these institutions in the first place do not know what they are doing? If you are reducing governance by merging and it is not done properly, what advantages are you getting from it? What is government in the first place? Government is not an entity on its own going this way, and the people are on their own going another way; government is the act of bringing people together for the purpose of making sure that things go well in a place. Therefore, you can’t save money for government and you want to leave people to suffer by merging places that are not supposed to be merged. That’s why when they talk about scrapping NECO and JAMB I criticized them because as far as I am concerned, those places, like NECO for instance, it has its own reason for coming up. I remember, before it was set up, there were a lot of cries all over the place that WAEC was not doing well, that there were a lot of exam malpractices, that people’s result were not being released. Government then set up an alternative exam body to compete with WAEC.
That was how NECO came in. That time, all these people in the government that are talking about scrapping of agencies didn’t even know what was going on. Now these things have become well, instead of finding ways to standardize it to make them more competent, they want to scrap them - I don’t subscribe to that. It is the same thing with research institutes, if they feel they should be merged to universities to reduce cost, they should also know that as they are reducing cost, will that reduction produce the kind of result we want? If it will, fine, if it will not, you better let them stay, so that they will be performing their jobs.
In the first place, the reason why the research institutes existed is for the concentration of powers or ideas in what they know to do best, which is research. But if you want to take them to the universities, because you feel universities are supposed to be centres of research and they don’t have facilities, are now expecting the research institutes to dissipate whatever knowledge or power that they have. It is like you cooked a delicious soup, then you poured water into it in order for it to reach everybody.
Nigerian universities have been criticized for churning out graduates that are unemployable; how big a problem is this?
Well, they said so - that they produce graduates that are unemployable, to me the statement is too sweeping. If they said Nigerian graduates are not employable, what of those that have been employed and they are doing their work very well. The only thing is that we are talking of the majority. We are talking about the type of curriculum that can make people come out of the university system and be on their own instead of waiting for white-collar jobs. I think that is what the people are saying, but to say that they are producing people that are unemployable to me is not correct. If they are producing people that are not tilted towards a particular profession, maybe they can advance provision in their curriculum to include other things in the curriculum that can make them that. It is not just people talking about vocation and technical, are the materials available to give that required training? Will everybody be in vocation and technical? Which course will you tell me that is useless in the Nigeria universities? Is it history, geography or chemistry? The most important thing is that any one you are studying, study it well and you can excel in it. Everybody is employable; the only thing is do more, so that if graduates are plenty in a particular area, as a result of what they have learnt in development of curriculum, including vocational and technical training, maybe they can be on their own. In every part of the world, you have unemployment all over; it is the way you handle your own that matters.
- See more at: http://leadership.ng/news/210813/nigerian-graduates-are-employable-agada#sthash.9BiY9lF3.dpuf
What have you been doing since you left office as the minister of education?
I have been doing so many things since then. I have served as the board chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) until the time that the government decided to dissolve all the boards. But even before then, I have been engaged in literary activities. I have a foundation known as Jerry Agada Foundation. The foundation propagates reading, writing and such other activities. Apart from that, I am a politician - I am the secretary of Benue State PDP Elder’s Forum. I am currently the chairman of the advisory board of President’s School’s Debate of Nigeria. And I am the vice chairman of the advisory board, Nigeria Prize for Literature - Prof Ayo Banju is the chairman. So now that I am out of office I have time to do my other activities, especially in reading and writing which is my passion.
CLOs recently scored Nigeria poor in education; having been at the helm of affairs in the education sector, what have you identified as causes for the dearth of world-class education in Nigeria?
So many variables are responsible. All along, there has never been a time that they will say that there are no problems in the education sector in Nigeria. We have all the time been working towards reversing that phenomenon so that things will go better. If you talk about ranking of universities the world over, you will discover that Nigerian universities are poorly ranked. Everyday what you hear is falling standard of education, but as an educationist, as one who has seen it all - because I have been a classroom teacher, school principal, executive secretary in an examinations board, permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, until I was appointed the minister of education. So you can see that, all along, my foundation has been rooted in education.
Some of the things I have found to be responsible for the poor standard of education in the country are factors such as poor funding, poor facilities and lack of quality teachers. UNESCO said that in every country’s annual budget, at least 25 per cent of that budget should be expended on education, so that there will be a chunk of money for educational matters. Do we that in Nigeria? Sometimes when you hear that 11 percent of the annual budget is taken to the education, you will say that they have tried, but at the end of the day, do they release that money? At the end of the budgetary year, you will discover that not all that was allocated that actually got released for the sector. Therefore, you will see that things continue to go bad instead of improving. If you go to the universities that we talk about, some of them are like glorified secondary schools. You need standard laboratories, standard libraries; do we have them in our universities. It is not just enough to have a building with a sign board that says university of this or that and you enter it and come out then you say you are a graduate.
Even the students that go to these universities, how well are they prepared, right from the primary, secondary up until the time they go to the tertiary level. I don’t know if it is the use of ICT that is responsible, but some of they don’t bother to read. One of the reasons why there is falling standard of education in the country is because of people’s inability to read.
At the time Oby Ezekwesili came to the ministry of education as the minister, when you heard about the much talked-about reforms in the education sector. When they were doing these reforms, one of the findings from the researches they did was that there was mass failure in exams because people do not read. That was why when I was a minister of state for education, I launched a campaign called the ‘National Action Committee on Read Campaign’. Therefore, the crux of the whole matter in terms of falling education is centred on people’s inability or unwillingness to read.
Over time, there have been reforms in the education sector, however, time and again the reforms have failed; what is responsible for this?
If you are doing reforms, it must go with proper funding. I was listening to a radio programme where the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) was talking about their grounds to call off the strike; they said that government should make available the result of visitation panel that they set up to go to these institutions sometime ago. Somebody was saying that the reason why government is not releasing it or implementing is that government on its part was indicted. These facilities are not there. For things to be turned around, government should provide them.
There is no level of education in Nigeria that they are not talking of poor funding. So that one can be a factor that has militated against the implementation of whatever they have found out to be responsible for the falling standard of education in terms of doing the reforms.
Even with the additional funding by TETFund and ETF, Nigerian universities seem to be lagging behind in inventions, especially in medicine and agriculture; why is this so?
I want to make it clear that because we have things like Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) does not mean that much money is available for the universities. You have so many universities competing for the money that is made available for TETFUND, so no matter how plenty that money is, anyone that is allocated to universities must be shared among the universities. So it is still not enough. Even if TETFund is there, forget about the federal universities, there are private universities, there are state universities - TETFund extends to them. Therefore there are a lot mouths waiting to consume whatever largesse that is coming out from TETFund. Then of course there are other things like corruption; it is one of the things that have brought many developmental aspirations down. You hear of stories of how EFCC is running after some VCs and after some other people as a result of misapplication, even if not misappropriation. So there are so many factors responsible for this.
Nigerian university lecturers and professors disappoint me in the sense that, as intellectuals, they cannot use this intellectualism to design something. Must you get everything through strike? If you say you are an intellectual, use your idealism to think out a way of getting what you want from the government without necessarily embarking on strike.
Our people go to study abroad and even Ghana, are they always on strike as we are in Nigeria?
There is no university Professor or VC in Nigeria that has not studied in universities abroad, as a result of undertaking sabbatical there or what have you. Can they not see the system those people are using in those places that is causing them not to go on strike? Or are they telling me that whatever those people say they want, government always throws it to them? Even if government doesn’t, they have their other ways of getting what they want, not necessarily using strike. So I challenge them in the universities system that if they want to show us that they are intellectuals, let them use their intelligence to think out something from the government instead of always embarking on strike, subjecting our children to undue stress.
When a student is supposed to be in school for a course she will do for three, four years, he stays there for eight years - that is not the best. Their staying in school for eight years does not mean that they are getting the quality education that you will want them to have, because they are at home on strike and as soon as it is announced that universities have resumed, they go for exam, and as soon as that exam is finished they go on strike - which time do they use to lecture? On the whole, nothing is going properly. I am saying this because you said money is available from TETFund but they are not doing research in terms of bringing out innovation and inventions in agriculture and medicine. Those ones are even too far; what of the ones the strike has done? There is a conglomeration of problems in our universities.
A Federal Executive Council committee recently suggested that research institutes across the country should be attached to universities; do you think it is a good idea?
It is part of the totality of that recommendation, but what I can say is that they can’t do these things at the expense of education. If you want to reduce cost in governance by merging two different organization that are performing two different functions, are you therefore saying that the people who sat and wrote the Act establishing these institutions in the first place do not know what they are doing? If you are reducing governance by merging and it is not done properly, what advantages are you getting from it? What is government in the first place? Government is not an entity on its own going this way, and the people are on their own going another way; government is the act of bringing people together for the purpose of making sure that things go well in a place. Therefore, you can’t save money for government and you want to leave people to suffer by merging places that are not supposed to be merged. That’s why when they talk about scrapping NECO and JAMB I criticized them because as far as I am concerned, those places, like NECO for instance, it has its own reason for coming up. I remember, before it was set up, there were a lot of cries all over the place that WAEC was not doing well, that there were a lot of exam malpractices, that people’s result were not being released. Government then set up an alternative exam body to compete with WAEC.
That was how NECO came in. That time, all these people in the government that are talking about scrapping of agencies didn’t even know what was going on. Now these things have become well, instead of finding ways to standardize it to make them more competent, they want to scrap them - I don’t subscribe to that. It is the same thing with research institutes, if they feel they should be merged to universities to reduce cost, they should also know that as they are reducing cost, will that reduction produce the kind of result we want? If it will, fine, if it will not, you better let them stay, so that they will be performing their jobs.
In the first place, the reason why the research institutes existed is for the concentration of powers or ideas in what they know to do best, which is research. But if you want to take them to the universities, because you feel universities are supposed to be centres of research and they don’t have facilities, are now expecting the research institutes to dissipate whatever knowledge or power that they have. It is like you cooked a delicious soup, then you poured water into it in order for it to reach everybody.
Nigerian universities have been criticized for churning out graduates that are unemployable; how big a problem is this?
Well, they said so - that they produce graduates that are unemployable, to me the statement is too sweeping. If they said Nigerian graduates are not employable, what of those that have been employed and they are doing their work very well. The only thing is that we are talking of the majority. We are talking about the type of curriculum that can make people come out of the university system and be on their own instead of waiting for white-collar jobs. I think that is what the people are saying, but to say that they are producing people that are unemployable to me is not correct. If they are producing people that are not tilted towards a particular profession, maybe they can advance provision in their curriculum to include other things in the curriculum that can make them that. It is not just people talking about vocation and technical, are the materials available to give that required training? Will everybody be in vocation and technical? Which course will you tell me that is useless in the Nigeria universities? Is it history, geography or chemistry? The most important thing is that any one you are studying, study it well and you can excel in it. Everybody is employable; the only thing is do more, so that if graduates are plenty in a particular area, as a result of what they have learnt in development of curriculum, including vocational and technical training, maybe they can be on their own. In every part of the world, you have unemployment all over; it is the way you handle your own that matters.
- See more at: http://leadership.ng/news/210813/nigerian-graduates-are-employable-agada#sthash.9BiY9lF3.dpuf
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