Victor EzejaAs the 21st century revolution driven by technology continues to disrupt social order, changing industry demands for skill set worldwide, there is an increasing emphasis on the reform of the education sector.
The progressively-minded and forward-thinking nations have relentlessly pursued the goal of improving their education sector by not only upgrading the infrastructure, producing quality teachers and increasing access, but also reforming the curriculum to be more relevant to current needs.
Prime Business Africa reports that Nigeria’s education sector is bedevilled with array of challenges, including inadequate funding, poor infrastructure quality of education, level of access, and examination malpractices.
The government had at various times taken some initiatives to reform the sector such as launching the Universal Basic Education (UBE) to provide free, compulsory, and universal primary and junior secondary education to all children; teacher development scheme to improve teacher quality through training and retraining programmes and professional development opportunities and curriculum reforms.
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In the aspect of curriculum, there have been calls for more reforms to make it relevant to the needs of the country, especially in developing human capital that meets 21st century industry demands.
Former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, called for a reform of the tertiary education curriculum to be more focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and entrepreneurship.
According to him about 70 per cent of the tertiary education curriculum should be on STEM and entrepreneurship.
While delivering a public lecture recently, on education and national development, Moghalu stressed that with the way the world is going today, it is imperative that Nigeria should revamp its education system to raise the manpower needed to develop the country and equally become more globally competitive.
He said: “We have to reform the curriculum. I propose that 70 per cent of the curriculum in tertiary education in Nigeria to move to entrepreneurship.
“We must make strong radical decisions. It doesn’t mean that history is not important. It doesn’t mean that learning English is not important. They can take up the remaining 30 per cent. We are not abolishing it, but 70 per cent must go to medical sciences, to engineering to STEM and all that so, we can create skilled manpower that we need to develop our country. We must encourage critical thinking.”
Prime Business Africa reports that STEM education, which was created by the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2001, has been adopted globally to teach students critical thinking and prepare them to become professionals in various scientific disciplines and tackle challenges in the society.
Analysts have observed that the level of adoption of STEM in Nigeria’s education system is very low. Some of the challenges facing the adoption of STEM education in Nigeria is the use of outdated curriculum and teaching methods, inadequate instructional facilities, lack of skilled teachers/trainers and poor funding.
Moghalu emphasised on funding of public educational institutions, saying it is the primary responsibility of the government.
He stated that the student loan scheme set up by the current administration is not enough when it comes to funding the education sector. He added the scheme is a good one but the challenge lies in effective implementation.
“It’s very important that the government fund education, not just about student loans. It’s about funding the retraining of teachers, funding the reform of the curriculum, funding the digitalization of our universities, shifting the curriculum towards STEM,” the former CBN deputy governor stated.
He observed that Nigeria’s budget for the education sector in the 2024 national budget is just 5 per cent which is very low. According to him, it should be at least 15 per cent and allocated to the right things to improve the sector.
He also harped on the need to leverage digital technology to enhance teaching and learning.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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