Gbajabiamila decries falling standard of education in Nigeria

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Tuesday, expressed concern at the numerous problems bedeviling the education system in Nigeria.

Gbajabiamila, who spoke at the tertiary education summit held in Abuja, blamed the incessant strikes in the tertiary education sector on the absence of transformational policies.

He said: “Time was when the tertiary institutions in our country were centres of excellence, comparable to the best institutions elsewhere in the world. There was a time when our brothers and sisters from across Africa and even farther away sought out our institutions, and we welcomed them in droves. That time is no more.

“It used to be that a student admitted to the university knew the date of their graduation and graduated on that day. And it once was that a career in academia guaranteed stable employment and an honourable quality of life. For the most part, all of these now exist as memories of a distant past. But it really wasn’t so long ago.

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“What we can, and must do, is ensure all our citizens are afforded equal opportunities to succeed or fail on their own. For Nigeria to reach its potential and achieve the greatness we are capable of, we must invest in our people. We must build ladders of opportunity that allow our citizens to scale great heights and achieve their best dreams.

“How do we ensure that every child born in Nigeria in this generation and hereafter can compete favourably in an ever-changing world? This is the defining issue of our age. And the answer is simple, we do it by providing a quality education that empowers the mind to ask hard questions and accept complicated solutions. We do it by training our people to revel in the inquiry, embrace complexity and not be afraid of knotty problems.

“Therefore, the central public policy challenge is the conflict between the competing objectives of access and quality. How do we fund a quality tertiary education without imposing costs that make access to quality education impossible for most people?”

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