• Stakeholders set agenda for incoming minister, list incessant strikes, out-of-school kids, lack of facilities, teachers’ welfare as top priorities
By Gabriel Dike, Fred Ezeh, Abuja; Seye Ojo, Ibadan; Felix Ikem, Nsukka; Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri; Adanna Nnamani
Stakeholders in the education sector are setting agenda for the yet-to-be-appointed minister of education. Top on their agenda are incessant strikes, out-of-school kids, lack of facilities and teachers’ welfare, among others. They advised President Bola Tinubu to pick someone with good knowledge of the workings of the sector.
Executive secretary, Centre for Education Management, Dr. Chris Osagie, told The Education Report: “Education sector requires someone who is knowledgeable about the sector. He must have the capacity to improve and tackle the rot in the system. The sector is vital to the nation’s economy and national development.
“President Tinubu must give the nation the best hand to pilot the affairs of the education sector. The sector needs a round peg in a round hole that can turn around the sector. We don’t want to go through what the nation experienced in the last eight years.”
Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Olufemi Fakolade, said: “For Nigeria to get it right, we should bring in a professional to the core as minister of education. The person should know the nitty-gritty of education. I am not saying the person must come from the university system or polytechnic system. And there is nothing bad if the person comes from the system.
“It is not appropriate for the country to have the kind of minister who after spending eight years confessed by himself that he was not qualified to be minister because he did not know anything about education when he was appointed. The new minister should be like the late former minister of education, Prof. Babatunde Fafunwa.
“He should focus on early childhood education and bring out-of-school children back to school in the first instance. There are many out-of-school children in the country. Neglecting them will be a keg of gunpowder for the country.
“He should work on reviewing and renewing the curriculum, with a view to ensuring that it is tailored appropriately for each pupil or student, especially in primary ad secondary schools, to achieve their ambition in life.”
He told a story of a child, who had the ambition to become a nurse. He was taken from Nigeria to Canada, where he was enrolled in a secondary school: “Everything the child was taught was tailored towards him becoming a nurse.
“This is what we should have, instead of a child in secondary school in Nigeria to be offering 17 to 18 subjects, in which majority are not relevant to what the child wants to become in life.
“Strike is one of the weapons the labour unions use to press home their demands. If government signs agreements, the agreements should be honoured. If there are difficulties in implementing the agreements, critical stakeholders must be carried along.
“Also, periodic review of salaries is important. Special attention should be given to payment of some peculiar arrears only for academic staff. Going forward, the best bet is to look for a professional that is in the line of education, with lots of experience to handle the ministry.”
Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Christian Opata, said: “Prioritising education should be uppermost in the agenda of government. To that end, the education minister to be appointed should be one who is experienced and has been a strong academic with a strong passion for quality education.
“His or her records in academia should speak for him/her. The appointee should be a person who will tell government the truth and not one who is eager to retain his/ her job at all costs. Such a person should be in a position to initiate policies and programmes that will help reposition the education sector.
“On the areas the minister should focus on. As it concerns strikes, the way forward is to address the issues that encourage strike actions satisfactorily, especially by prevailing on government to honour the agreements it reach with various unions.
“For out-of-school-children, there is a need for serious and holistic sensitisation, as well as introduction of compulsory and free primary education to all children.”
For Mrs. Eucharia Nnadi, a teacher at the Community Primary School, Agbani, Nsukka Local Government, Enugu State: “The nation is expecting the president to appoint an education minister, who at one time or the other had been in the education sector.
“The minister should be able to know the feelings of the teachers and students at large. He/she should be able to know the challenges facing the education sector and proffer lasting solutions.
“He or she should focus more on the improvement of the welfare of the education staff, especially the teachers. The minister should ensure that teachers become the highest-paid civil servants so as to make the teaching profession attractive. The minister should also give bursary awards to students of education courses in the universities.
“The minister should tackle the 12 million out-of-school children by providing necessary learning tools to the students and pupils free of charge. Education at the primary and secondary levels should be made to be free and compulsory. This will encourage the prospective students or pupils across the country.”
Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), Borno State, Prof. Yusuf Balami, said: “The incoming minister should do a clinical examination of the education sector. He ought to know why certain policies are not working.
“President Tinubu should appoint a professional from the academic but with track record. He should tackle poverty and ignorance to address challenges of out-of-school children.”
President, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Muhammed Ibrahim, said: “The Ministry of Education is very big. It is an industry that is an octopus-liked shaped. You have the primary, secondary and tertiary education. For someone to perform well in that ministry, you need you need someone who is not a novice in the industry.
“Somebody who must have had experiences working in education related industry, for he or she will to deliver. If a novice and who is not an expert in education, he may be misled by civil servants.
“Also, very importantly, someone who is labour related. Someone who has experience in crisis management. If you look at what is obtained in all the different segments of education they are run by union leaders. For instance, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) operates as the umbrella body regulating the activities of teachers in primary and post primary. In the tertiary segment, we have the university-based unions, the college of education and the polytechnic-based unions.
“It will also require someone with labour experience. He must have related with these unions, who really knows the demands and expectations of these unions so that the interest, welfare and wellbeing of workers in institutions will also be taken care of.
“Most importantly, all these cannot be achieved without adequate funding. The major challenge is that Nigeria has not met the UNESCO benchmark of 26 per cent of its budget, which should go to education. There is no minister you will bring who will do any miracle if the funding regime is poor and is bad. In the budget, they must get it right.
“Another thing is human capital. Getting the right people to do the jobs. For now, appointing vice chancellors, provosts and rectors has also become political. Membership of governing councils must be given serious attention. The councils are the ones who are the employers of university staffers, colleges of education and the rest.
“You don’t just bring politicians and make them chairmen of councils and members of councils. Bring people who have experience. Retired but not tired teachers, engineers, accountants, who have known the terrain.
“If you talk about the 12million out-of-school children, these are statistics that could be wrong or right. They could be more they could be right. You cannot have the opportunity of taking these children out of the streets without necessarily first making sure that there is the political will. To get this done, government must refocus its energies on programmes and policies established even previously.
“Strikes have come to stay as long as government remains deceitful and deceptive in its operations. Where you have MoUs, MoAs signed by government with unions and they are not respected, labour unrest will continue”
President, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Anderson Ezeibe, said the union expects the president to appoint a minister with a very good understanding of the issues in the education sector, from basic to tertiary level.
“The new minister should have listening ears, patriotic and committed to lifting our education to the desired levels. He should be willing to work progressively with the trade unions as gatekeepers to ensure industrial harmony in the sector
“He should ensure that the embarrassing situation in basic education where out of school children hit the 20million mark is reversed. He should ensure that the universal basic education commission revises its vision to ensure appropriate and target driven interventions in basic education.
“At the tertiary education level, the minister should ensure that the lingering issues of infrastructure deficit, poor staff compensation packages and obsolete curricular as well as different layers of intrusion and micro management of tertiary institutions by the supervising ministry is stopped. It goes against the principles of autonomy of these institutions. Laws should be respected in the tertiary institutions by the government. The lingering renegotiation of agreements with trade unions in the sector should be completed.
“Issues leading to the rising figures of out of school children should be addressed through deliberate and targeted policies involving stakeholders. This could involve enlightenment programmes, reversal of the dilapidation in public primary and secondary schools, as well as targeted insensitive to encourage students’ enrolment.
“There should be proven commitment to resolving contentious issues in the sector. The renegotiation process involving trade unions should be concluded, while sustainable funding strategies should be explored. Constant engagements with trade unions and other stakeholders in the tertiary education sector should be imbibed to deepen understanding and nip issues of conflict in the bud before escalation.”
Adamu’s eight years as minister
Mallam Adamu Adamu was appointed Minister of Education alongside Prof. Anthony Anwukah, who served as Minister of State for Education, 2015 to 2019.
He was among several ministers believed to have started slowly due to obvious reasons. He spent little time at the learning curve before he picked up through the help of some good hands that he assembled from within and outside the academia. They helped him to develop three years ministerial strategic plan for the sector.
But like other cabinet members particularly those, who were posted to unfamiliar sectors, they started with “errors.” Adamu’s perceived first error was the sack of vice chancellors of 12 universities were appointed shortly before his coming, without recourse to the institutions’ governing councils and senates.
The decision resulted in “bad blood” between the minister and industry players including lawmakers who reminded him of the law that stated that only the Visitor (The President) could remove VCs after receiving a recommendation from the governing councils and in consultation with the Senate.
There were several activities that shaped the education sector, which attracted commendations and condemnations. In August 2016, Adamu announced the appointment of heads of parastatals under the ministry. The appointment was said to have brought cold war between Adamu and Anwukah, who reportedly claimed he was never contacted for input.
The cold war perhaps, cost Anwukah his job because he was not considered for re-appointment in 2019. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba took his place.
Prof. Ish-aq Oloyede, who replaced Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, as JAMB Registrar, became the “star boy” of the ministry when he began to return surplus revenues to the Consolidated Revenue Fund contrary to old practice. He was repeatedly commended by the Presidency and won several awards including The Sun Awards.
Adamu had fair share of ASUU “headache” he inherited from the previous administration. Unfortunately, he couldn’t solve the problem just like the case of out-of-school children that he admitted failure.
There were cases of ASUU strike during the eight years of Adamu as minister. It was only in 2015 that there was no ASUU strike. In 2016, ASUU went on strike for seven days and in 2017 it was 35 days. In 2018, ASUU downed tools for 19 days and it continued till February 8, 2019.
The year 2020 witnessed nine months of ASUU strike. In 2022, campuses were shut for eight months due to ASUU strike. It took judicial pronouncement for the university lecturers to reopen the campuses and return to class.
At the end of Adamu’s eight years, the number of universities had risen to 170 with majority of them privately owned. Adamu worked with Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, to facilitate the establishment of large number of tertiary institutions.
Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) supported the institutions through improved annual financial disbursements and other supports through various platforms as approved by the Board of Trustees and the President.
Adamu, in one of his meetings with state commissioners for education, admitted that he failed in one of his dreams, which was reducing the number of out-of-school children.
However, he claimed that state governments have the major task in doing this: “Education is on the concurrent list. States and local governments are responsible for basic and secondary education, thus leaving the task of tertiary education for the Federal Government.”
Parastatals, notably, TRCN, JAMB, NUC, UBEC, NABTEB and NCCE, enjoyed support that culminated in improved services.
In eight years, Adamu worked with three ministers of state, namely, Anwukah, Nwajiuba and Goodluck Opiah. Similarly, he had highest turnover of permanent secretaries. He started with the current Head of Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, who was replaced by Dr. Jamila Shu’ara. Sonny Echono and David Adejoh also worked with Adamu.