Bolaji Abdullahi: Nigerian Schools Should Focus On Making Functional Citizens

Former Commissioner of Education for Kwara State, Bolaji Abdullahi spoke on the nation’s regressing educational sector and certain factors for consideration that the new incoming administration need to take up in their assessment of the sector.

In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, the former commissioner of education pointed out flaws in the educational sector and the 6-3-3-4 system it has embodies for over 20 years which consists of six years of primary school education,, three years each of junior and senior secondary schools and finally a minimum of four years in tertiary institutions.

Bolaji Abdullahi stated statistics that showed the backwardness of the educational system and a need to improve it as it has no longer proven to be effective in providing adequate education. He compared the previous administration of President Jonathan to that President Buhari saying that there was not much of in the improvement of the sector when both were compared.

“To zero in on the election sector, I can say that not much has changed. In the last couple of months we saw a post stating that 76% cant read between 8-14, and almost 90% of WAEC participant do not meet requirements for career progression, then the most reported one, 1.3 out of school kids.

“On the indices of enrolment and educational accomplishment not a lot of progress has been made. The difference between this one and the last administration is that all the assessment carried out in the country in terms of measuring children learning ability was done before this administration of president Buhari.”

Abdullahi showed concerns in a survey stating that 5% of children completing Bauchi primary schools cannot read basic passages. He called for the focus to be shifted  from trying to just pass children through school but actually pouring more focus into properly educating them with effective and adequate effort from government and school institutions alike.

According to UNICEF statistics, up to 18 million children are out of school children in the world. Abdullahi’s recommendation for the new administration is for them to measure funding with the dimensions of effectiveness of how much is being funded and efficiency of what is being fund. 

“If you ask me what the new administration needs to do, they need to take a holistic review of the sector and it must be done as quickly as possible. Any thing short of that is not going to be enough.

“Schools should have incite to how basic education is run. Make them major entity for funding education. We need to review our 6-3-3-4 policy and put more effort in making the  “functional citizens.” 

Glamour Adah

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