Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister
for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has
raised the alarm over the deteriorating state of
education.
The development, she said, has reached a point
where students on graduation, could not
demonstrate the necessary skills to make them
employable or innovative in the labour market.
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala spoke at a lecture entitled:
Science and technology: The key to Nigeria's
transformation, which was part of the Second
Prof Barth Nnaji Biennial Lecture series, at the
Enugu State University of Science and Technology
(ESUT), Enugu.
She said there was need to put in place
mechanisms to improve the quality and facilities
available for teaching as well as for research at
the tertiary level.
"These measures are not limited to simply
increasing funds available; collaboration
between higher institutions (national and
international), a more limited focus in research
programmes offered, and an improvement in the
culture of maintenance are all measures that will
help deliver this end.
"In the case of university research, findings
should be competition-based, to provide
incentives to enhance efficiency and strengthen
collaboration with industry."
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala further lamented that the
nation's higher institutions were plagued with
inadequate science and technology facilities and
poor materials for practical skills development.
"Many laboratories lack the basic equipment for
thorough scientific research. How, for example,
can a computer science graduate not understand
the basics of writing software codes? Nigeria is
churning out thousands of science and
technology graduates each year, but several of
them are under-employed, going into the banking
and non-scientific sectors," she said.
She noted that policy makers should be aware
that few countries could achieve development
goals, such as economic diversification, food
security, poverty reduction, without the
scientific , engineering and technical capacity to
handle 'the challenges.
The SchoolGist Team
