Corona College of Education calls for a State of Emergency in Nigeria’s education sector

.Demands for national  value transformation and re-orientation

Corona College of Education has called on the federal government to declare education as an emergency , due to the emergent Security Issues in the country and its effects on education sector

They  also affirmed that that there is urgent need for value re orientation  and value transformation to adequately address the precarious state of the educational system in the country.

Speaking at the 3^rd  Public Lecture organized by   Corona College of Education with the theme ‘Emergent Security Issues in Nigeria: The Facts, Puzzles and Remedies for the Education Sector, the Director-General  of Nigerian Institute Of International Affairs; Africa’s Foremost Foreign Policy Think Tank , Prof. Eghosa Osaghae ,who was also the  guest lecturer urged the government and every stakeholder who identifies with the problems of education in the country not to handle these emergent Security Issues with levity.

According to him “People really need to know what it means when there is a crisis in a sector. It means that the country cannot make any meaningful economic development or growth if we don’t fix that sector.”

‘’The Spate of the challenges, ranging from kidnappings, to banditry, militancy, terrorism, civil unrests, riots, environmental hazards, armed robbery and unprovoked shootings have a way of  keeping  our students out of school and when this happens , our youths will be an easy recruits for this bandits and terrorist.

Osaghae lamented that  though insecurity is a global problem , the state must see education  as  a veritable tool for defeating the monster and liberating the world. Government must find a way of providing security for the sector and the nation must seriously invest in education, if we must catch up with the rest of the world on economic and infrastructural development.

He also conversed for a technological driven curriculum which will help job competencies of our youths, that will help our them add value to the system.

The call to action by Corona College of Education comes amidst concerns for the poor state of education in Nigeria. According to UNICEF, one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. Even though primary education is officially free and compulsory, more than 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school. Even when children go to school, the education they receive is often of low quality; based on outdated curricula without impacting the critical skills necessary to compete with children from other parts of the world. One of the areas where this is obvious is Science, Technology and Innovation. The technology advocate, therefore, called for the mainstreaming of coding for Nigerians right from childhood.

Earlier in her welcome address the  provost of Corona College of Education, Dr. Olajumoke Mekiliuwa said that the public lecture topic was chosen to capture the numerous security threats confronting the nation’s educational institutions, from primary, secondary to tertiary schools, in recent times.

According to her the lecture was designed to generate discourses around pertinent issues in education with the effect of galvanizing sustainable change in the education sector in Nigeria .

Dr. Mekiliuwa noted that  education sector is a determining factor of change for the development of any country, not just Nigeria, but Africa as a whole.

“Government should embrace more actions and less talk in solving the problems of education which include, but not limited to, lack of innovation, lack of infrastructure and teaching aids, poor funding, and governance.” She stated

She noted that these are apparently challenging times for parents, teachers, proprietors, administrators, staff and students nationwide as the nation’s institutions have become the target of attacks from enemies within and without. She said that the the spate of attacks on schools in Nigeria in recent times is unprecedented and reports of teachers, lecturers, students abducted from schools, reports of teachers beaten by students/parents, reports of pupils attacking, bullying and inflicting harm on peers are all frightening dimensions to the issues of insecurity that warrants a gathering such as this.

It would be recalled that major findings showed that insecurity of the school environment significantly affects the academic performance of secondary school students while smoking of Indian hemp, hard drugs, student’s, cult, violent activities, kidnapping, armed robbery, parents confrontation of teachers, sexual harassment, rape, using of guns