Nigeria: Adamu – Tackling Corruption in Education Sector, My Core Mandate

Abuja — The Minister of Education, Adamu

Adamu, in his assumption of duties yesterday at

the Federal Ministry of Education, he said the

Presidency has mandated him to tackle pervasive

corruption bedeviling the educational system in

the country.

Adamu also attributed corruption, under

funding, dearth of regulatory frameworks and

several other challenges to reasons why there

have been rot in the education sector, he

observed that these factors had impacted

negatively on the entire economy.

At the meeting with top management staff of

the ministry, including the newly deployed

Permanent Secretary, Dr. Shade Yemi-Esan, the

minister explained that his priority areas

included revamping the school feeding programme

at the basic level, boosting quality assurance

and enacting laws through a bill to make it

mandatory for all school age children to get

enrolled in schools.

Adamu said: “The core problems of education in

the country,while inter-related,vary from one

level of education to another. It is the crisis of

underfunding which gave birth to a whole series

of other problems such as poor infrastructure

for teaching and learning.

 

“It is also the cause of absence of laboratory

equipment for teaching and research, poor

condition of service for teachers and the

menance of brain drain from our tertiary

institutions of learning to the so called greener

pastures.

“The crisis of poor enrollment and access which

leave millions of school age children roaming the

streets and millions of others competing for

some thousands of places in our tertiary

institutions and the crisis of regulation which

has turned the entire education system into a

jungle where everything goes.

“The ministry of education under my

stewardship,will confront these problems with all

the seriousness,commitment and strong political

will they desrve to ensure that we address them

once and for all,allowing these problems to

persist is akin to surrendering the fate of our

country to ignorance,something we cannot

afford to do.”

The minister stated that part of his immediate

objectives will be to reform primary education

through regulation and incentives,review and

enforce regulations relating to staffing,capacity

building and quality assurance.

“We will create incentives for enrolment into

primary education by working with states and

local governments to work out modalities for

offering free meals to the pupils as well as

working together with states to enact laws that

will make it mandatory for all school age children

to enrol,” Adamu stressed.

The minister said his administration would take

a comprehensive look at the needs assessment

reports conducted separately for public

universities,colleges of education and

polytechnics with a view to implementing some of

the far reaching recommendations.

“The new action plan that will guide my

stewardship as minister of education will present

practical steps geared towards addressing these

burning issues.

“I must recognise that the reports of the

committees on needs assessment conducted

separately for public universities,colleges of

education and polytechnics contain far reaching

recommendations that,if judiciously

implemented,will go a long way in repositioning

our tertiary education sector,” he stated.

Also, the permanent secretary assured the

minister of the readiness of staff to put in their

best, and contribute their quota to the change

agenda of the government.