Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....!!! Tomorrow, in Abuja, the 20th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit kicks off, with the theme: “Transforming Education Through Partnerships For Global Competitiveness.” A recent advert by the organisers of the summit highlights the seriousness of Nigeria’s educational problems. The “fact sheet” points out that: “44% of Nigerian students cannot read a complete sentence on the completion of their primary education” and “Over 70% of Nigerian candidates in the 2013 finals of the Secondary School exams conducted by WAEC failed.” We also know that about 1.5 million write the annual University Matriculation Exams, in competition for 600,000 spaces. There’s no safety net for those who don’t make it in this long, hellish race. They’ll end up at the mercy of government agencies and their ‘consultant’ accomplices, who collect N1,000 or N2,000 from them for jobs that most of them stand no chance of getting. (The NIS is not the only government agency that charges fees for recruitment; this fee-based ‘e-recruitment portal’ has apparently become standard operating procedure in the uniformed services – Police, Navy, Air Force, etc). We’re living a tragedy. Based on our population growth rates, it has been predicted that by 2050 Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world, after India and China, in that order. If even half of those 400 million citizens are youth (currently, three quarters of Nigeria’s population is below 35), we will need to take care of about 200 million young Nigerians; providing schools and jobs for them. If we can’t provide for today’s 100 million or so young people, how will we take care of double that number? Will the National Conference kicking off tomorrow pay attention to this issue? Or will they (elders and ‘stakeholders’ who have many more years behind them than ahead) spend all their time bickering over matters that have no benefit to the lives of Nigeria’s most important, and most beleaguered, demographic? ----toluogunlesi
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:54:46 +0000