Considering our large population, free education would be unfeasible. You run the risk of running a watered down education.

To implement quality education requires intensive capital commitments [not like the current education jamboree where ASUU dilly dallies with a government that continually denies having enough funds]

Even at that, by studying current trends in education rankings. We would need to be spending at least $8000 (oecd average) per head yearly to be able to be on par with some of the best education systems in the world. Our oil receipts alone would certainly not be feasible

DerideGull:

Mr. chucks a.k.a mgbo piafuka gi

Contrary to your beliefs of negativity and deceitfulness, one of the major contributors to societal ills and decadents is lack of employment for school leavers. Until Nigeria has put in place solid plans to grant gainful employment to its school leavers, the talk of free education is a hogwash.

Stop being unimaginative, the new education system will give rive to thousands of job opportunities to the new graduates in the education sector. The rest of them will be gainfully employed by the comprehensive jobs programs which will go hand in hand with the education program.

Toktee: The biblical solomon was very wised but you are not,niger state governor decleared free education in niger state frm primary school to tertiary institutions and it works,i benefited frm it ok.

shut up,you brainless morøn.
We're talking of quality education and you're telling me of one morønic governor dishing out a watered-down education system to his deluded masses.
How rich is Niger-state or even Nigeria for you to start implementing free tertiary education?
America is the largest economy in the world,the amount of money they spend on harvard alone is more than our entire budget for education, yet tertiary education is still very expensive there.
Go and get some proper education.

ndu_chucks:

Once again, it is sad for me to state that most of you are quite ignorant of how blessed Nigeria is, in both natural and human resources. It is this ignorance that makes well meaning people like you to believe that it is not possible to offer quality education, freely to Nigerians.

I challenge you to do a small research on how much money has been stolen by government officials in 2013 alone and limit your research to proven thefts only (news paper accounts or court records could be used). Then add the amount of crude oil stolen in the same year, then add the over N700 billion lost as a result of import waivers issued by the ministry of finance. You'll soon find out that if only 10% of the sum is channeled properly, there will be enough to provide the said quality education freely to Nigerians.

A regime change will make this obvious soon enough. Folks, we are on the verge of the greatest level of development ever experienced in our history and the good news is that providence is on the side of Nigerians.

For a country of 170million with a GDP of 390billion,there's nothing rich about Nigeria atleast for now.
Even in california with a GDP of $1trillion for just 5million people,education there is very expensive.
Unless you want poor and highly sub-standard tertiary institutions,education can never be free at all levels.

ndu_chucks:

I know you dodged my question to you on the other thread but please do not dodge this one.

Sir, what are your objections to free education for ALL Nigerians and the requirement that ALL Nigerian children must obtain at a minimum, primary school education with stiff penalties for parents who do not send their children to school?

I didn't 'dodge' yr questns on that thread. I hvn't been feeling well for days now, so I hvn't been a fan of penning long comments or even opening new threads fos sm days now; plus, I thought my comment on that thread was sufficient for d points I wanted to make.....@topic, I said you told sm Lies in yr OP. Here are just 2 of them: 1. It is not true that APC States promote Free Education at all levels, when for in stance APC States in d SW (former ACN States) charge d HIGHEST Skul fees in Tetiary Institutions in Nigeria. 2. #64bn, not #700bn, is d amount 'lost' to Duty Waivers; and it even from 2012-mid 2013.... Merry Xmas, guy

And Oh! by d way, @'Ndu-chuks', I don't bliv nor support 'Free Education' in d Tetiary levels; and only for Least Educated States like many in d North, wud I support same for Senior Secondary. The Govt shld robustly support Education and create Mechanisms for securing access to d most vulnerable persons in society, without trying to introduce mere Feel-Good-Policies that are ultimately unsubstainable.

carsprayer: please how much is lagos state university school fee? APC una be hypocrites

Lolz. . . .

BlackBaron: Considering our large population, free education would be unfeasible. You run the risk of running a watered down education.

To implement quality education requires intensive capital commitments [not like the current education jamboree where ASUU dilly dallies with a government that continually denies having enough funds]

Even at that, by studying current trends in education rankings. We would need to be spending at least $8000 (oecd average) per head yearly to be able to be on par with some of the best education systems in the world. Our oil receipts alone would certainly not be feasible

^^gbam.

Where in nigerian public schools is school unaffordable? Cost isn't what keeps nigerians out of school, it's illiterate parents with bad priorities or stubborn children. Money is keeping nobody from school and they need to stop lying to themselves.

The very little amount of fees they're paying is keeping the education system alive because Nigerians don't pay taxes needed to support free education and aren't willing or ready to. This is a foolish policy used to woo gullible people. Cost is only a factor in Universities.

Ndu_chuks, I like your opening post and subsequent followups. Deridegull pointed out the risk of higher unemployment, you gave a political response and left the social implications hanging. Let me clarify. Currently we are turning out more people trained and disposed for professional careers than we are for artisans. An unemployed law school graduate is not going to enroll for apprenticeship in a bakery or printing shop. This is not his/her fault, academic indoctrination has produced such social dilemmas.

After mass layoff in investment banking and brokerage post 2008 financial turmoil across America, career workers used to earning six figures adjusted expectations and took whatever they could find earning meagre incomes as attendants in ski resorts, waiting tables in restaurants, baby sitting, cabbie and so on. This is self sufficiency. Nigerians are not indoctrinated socially for self sufficiency, we look forward to a fountain well of subsidy to get us along day by day.

How is APC going to address the social issue of productivity?

Ikengawo:


^^gbam.

Where in nigerian public schools is school unaffordable? Cost isn't what keeps nigerians out of school, it's illiterate parents with bad priorities or stubborn children. Money is keeping nobody from school and they need to stop lying to themselves.

The very little amount of fees they're paying is keeping the education system alive because Nigerians don't pay taxes needed to support free education and aren't willing or ready to. This is a foolish policy used to woo gullible people. Cost is only a factor in Universities.

The first run on free education in Nigeria was done successfully and rewardingly. Why did Action Group implement universal free education?

That was because administrative and clerical skills were in high demand to staff bureacracies.

Before we launch a policy we need first to set a measurable objective so in a few years we can compare the before and after and benchmark the success.

Where in our industrial complexes are skills in high demand today? Thats what we should be training for. There are unemployed law graduates and health sector graduates as well insurance and marketing graduates; their career field is saturated and no where to absorb their offered skill. Farmlands need cultivators but we dont have enough trained farmers, not enough trained chefs, how about tailors, cobblers, machinists and so on.

You have a higher chance of getting visa to US or England as an highly skilled chef than you do as a highly skilled lawyer. This is compass to guide our policies in what other countries are doing and where the world is heading.

ImperialYoruba:

The first run on free education in Nigeria was done successfully and rewardingly. Why did Action Group implement universal free education?

That was because administrative and clerical skills were in high demand to staff bureacracies.

Before we launch a policy we need first to set a measurable objective so in a few years we can compare the before and after and benchmark the success.

Where in our industrial complexes are skills in high demand today? Thats what we should be training for. There are unemployed law graduates and health sector graduates as well insurance and marketing graduates. Farmlands need cultivators but we dont have enough trained farmers, not enough trained chefs, how about tailors, cobblers, machinists and so on.

You have a higher chance of getting visa to US or England as an highly skilled chef than you do as a highly skilled lawyer. This is compass to guide our policies in what other countries are doing and where the world is heading.

Please. For the love of progress, stop lying about 'action group free education'.

You know there are people in the SW that can't read and write, the region even lags behind the south in literacy.
You know there are people in the SW that can't speak english
more importantly you know your grandparents are not educated people. Its very uncommon for anyone that was of student age during Awolowo's time to be literate all across nigeria. Stop lying to yourself. You can come on the internet and lie but the average yoruba grandparent doesn't speak english. This is even the generation keeping african languages alive because they weren't schooled. Period.

If this free education is what filled the 'high demand' for our civil service, why is our civil service the most disgraceful on earth? Why does nothing work in Nigeria? If this free education really equip our administrators and government workers why is our government complete garbage?

Stop with the lies. The difference between the rest of Nigeria and the SW is the rest of Nigeria will tell you the truth about nigeria and the SW will tell you they're in france. Stop. The average person, of any tribe, from Awolowo's generation is semi-literate to illiterate. There are a few literate ones but it's no more prevalent in the SW than any other part of the country. The ones that did the most to education nigerians were the churches and the british. Lets start telling ourselves the truth. After their hands were taken away from the process education STEEPLY declined and our civil servants are a joke.

I respect Chinua Achebe because more than any african author he gives you the truth. Not glorification, no washing out the 'bad parts' to whole and complete truth. When he wrote about igbo culture, he didn't write to make it seem more or less glorious than it was, he included everything in an honest way. caste system, ritual killings, everything, while other writers were struggling to make it look like we used to be the Romans before the british came.


If so many in this country were wrapped up on the childish 'awolowo feud' that came with his last book they would have found the book as a great opportunity to LEARN the truth about Nigeria's history. In his book There Was a Country he wrote extensively about the british education system in Nigeria and how it impacted him personally. In that time I picked up from the story that the british sent experts to Nigeria to teach nigerians how to be experts themselves in their own land. The average british man in nigeria was superior in qualification and education to the average british man in england by far. Some of their best minds were in Nigeria teaching primary school. By the time they left primary school kids were able to write novels.

Merit was more important than origin. They better the student you were the more care you got and the better schools you were sent to through out the country. Achebe from Anambra graduated in Umuahia because it was the absolute best school. By the time he got there the students were made aware, by the teachers, that a gifted student was coming and he was recieved very well. He then went to Ibadan because that was the best school in the country. If you were to read the list of men he graduated with and the caliber of work they did in the rest of there lives you would faint. 30% of Nigeria's academic icons were from this class and over 60% from this short lived system.


When the british left people started getting tribal. Western schools were upset to have eastern teachers and chancellors and regardless of their qualifications they were rejected or not given their jobs back after the war. The same all over the country from north to south to east to west, people were just obsessed with their tribe at the detriment of their learning.

This i what caused the collapse and allowed politicians to start using school as political gimmicks. Bullshit about 'free education' when the entire school staff is there because they're someone's girlfriend, concubine, brother or son.

meanwhile the gifted nigerians that were once celebrated like celebrities had no choice by to go oversees where that same merit system they thrived in was alive. After the civil war it was wrap, there was no such a thing as merit in any form of civil service in Nigeria.


I know we as a nation are desperate to have heroes but we need to stop lying. Awolowo's 'free education' didn't make a difference and a difference isn't something you will debate, it's something you will see. Today you can make Nigeria's education system 100% free, the fact remains in that we have schools filled with teachers that can't read, students that cram information to pass tests or not get beat instead of learning and applying is, and millions of educated youths in fields that they have no clue about.


Free education will only make me more hesitant to hire a Nigerian to build my house for fly my plane. As it stands today would you hire a nigerian from awolowo's free education policy to do heart surgery on your mother or children? Lets be real.

Ikengawo:


Please. For the love of progress, stop lying about 'action group free education'.

You know there are people in the SW that can't read and write, the region even lags behind the south in literacy.
You know there are people in the SW that can't speak english
more importantly you know your grandparents are not educated people. Its very uncommon for anyone that was of student age during Awolowo's time to be literate all across nigeria. Stop lying to yourself. You can come on the internet and lie but the average yoruba grandparent doesn't speak english. This is even the generation keeping african languages alive because they weren't schooled. Period.

This is precisely the indoctrination mindset I outlined in my post. Regionally, no other place in Nigeria can match West in terms of social and civic advancement. Academic education is good but it does not teach civic and self responsibility. You just exhibited in your response the precise point I alluded that we need to move away from. We need a new agenda for social renewal so people like you can subsist on self skill and not over dependent on what the classroom promises to give you. There is no equal opportunity in education, civic training rules the day but the winner comes equipped with both. Go and read Awo's doctrines on social responsibility and you will instantly see the hallmark of Yoruba stability and onward progress.

If this free education is what filled the 'high demand' for our civil service, why is our civil service the most disgraceful on earth? Why does nothing work in Nigeria? If this free education really equip our administrators and government workers why is our government complete garbage?

Everyone except you perharps will agree that our political problem has its roots in military intervention when in Jan 66 your yanmiri brothers brought their disorderliness into the political life and killed the national promise.

Stop with the lies. The difference between the rest of Nigeria and the SW is the rest of Nigeria will tell you the truth about nigeria and the SW will tell you they're in france. Stop. The average person, of any tribe, from Awolowo's generation is semi-literate to illiterate. There are a few literate ones but it's no more prevalent in the SW than any other part of the country. The ones that did the most to education nigerians were the churches and the british. Lets start telling ourselves the truth. After their hands were taken away from the process education STEEPLY declined and our civil servants are a joke.

Refer to my first parapgraph on top, you can run a bureacracy with illiterates. Education is not what run efficient govts, civility and orderliness is what makes government run smooth. You guys in East keep emphasizing on education and eventough the West is more educated than you we emphasise our penchant for ordered and structured heirarchy system. Northern people are less educated but they run a smoother and efficient bureacreacy than Ibos. Proof that its not your degrees that run government, its civility. In terms of both, academic excellence and civility, West is King in this country.

If you are going to calculate academic excellence using admission or graduation indices then we also need to factor in accreditation and benchmarking for the institutions. How many of your Unis in the past 10yrs have topped African ranking? Are you turning out quality or quantity?

Ikengawo: [s]I respect Chinua Achebe because more than any african author he gives you the truth. Not glorification, no washing out the 'bad parts' to whole and complete truth. When he wrote about igbo culture, he didn't write to make it seem more or less glorious than it was, he included everything in an honest way. caste system, ritual killings, everything, while other writers were struggling to make it look like we used to be the Romans before the british came.


If so many in this country were wrapped up on the childish 'awolowo feud' that came with his last book they would have found the book as a great opportunity to LEARN the truth about Nigeria's history. In his book There Was a Country he wrote extensively about the british education system in Nigeria and how it impacted him personally. In that time I picked up from the story that the british sent experts to Nigeria to teach nigerians how to be experts themselves in their own land. The average british man in nigeria was superior in qualification and education to the average british man in england by far. Some of their best minds were in Nigeria teaching primary school. By the time they left primary school kids were able to write novels.

Merit was more important than origin. They better the student you were the more care you got and the better schools you were sent to through out the country. Achebe from Anambra graduated in Umuahia because it was the absolute best school. By the time he got there the students were made aware, by the teachers, that a gifted student was coming and he was recieved very well. He then went to Ibadan because that was the best school in the country. If you were to read the list of men he graduated with and the caliber of work they did in the rest of there lives you would faint. 30% of Nigeria's academic icons were from this class and over 60% from this short lived system.


When the british left people started getting tribal. Western schools were upset to have eastern teachers and chancellors and regardless of their qualifications they were rejected or not given their jobs back after the war. The same all over the country from north to south to east to west, people were just obsessed with their tribe at the detriment of their learning.

This i what caused the collapse and allowed politicians to start using school as political gimmicks. Bullshit about 'free education' when the entire school staff is there because they're someone's girlfriend, concubine, brother or son.

meanwhile the gifted nigerians that were once celebrated like celebrities had no choice by to go oversees where that same merit system they thrived in was alive. After the civil war it was wrap, there was no such a thing as merit in any form of civil service in Nigeria.


I know we as a nation are desperate to have heroes but we need to stop lying. Awolowo's 'free education' didn't make a difference and a difference isn't something you will debate, it's something you will see. Today you can make Nigeria's education system 100% free, the fact remains in that we have schools filled with teachers that can't read, students that cram information to pass tests or not get beat instead of learning and applying is, and millions of educated youths in fields that they have no clue about.


Free education will only make me more hesitant to hire a Nigerian to build my house for fly my plane. As it stands today would you hire a nigerian from awolowo's free education policy to do heart surgery on your mother or children? Lets be real.[/s]

Im not interested in political noisemaking, talk to me about social upliftment for the people.

ImperialYoruba:
Ndu_chuks, I like your opening post and subsequent followups. Deridegull pointed out the risk of higher unemployment, you gave a political response and left the social implications hanging. Let me clarify. Currently we are turning out more people trained and disposed for professional careers than we are for artisans. An unemployed law school graduate is not going to enroll for apprenticeship in a bakery or printing shop. This is not his/her fault, academic indoctrination has produced such social dilemmas.

After mass layoff in investment banking and brokerage post 2008 financial turmoil across America, career workers used to earning six figures adjusted expectations and took whatever they could find earning meagre incomes as attendants in ski resorts, waiting tables in restaurants, baby sitting, cabbie and so on. This is self sufficiency. Nigerians are not indoctrinated socially for self sufficiency, we look forward to a fountain well of subsidy to get us along day by day.

How is APC going to address the social issue of productivity?

I understand your point regarding risk of higher unemployment, but I submit to you that such a risk will be non-existent or no more than what obtains today. Free education does not imply that more students will be admitted to tertiary institutions or that existing tertiary institutions will by default, produce more graduates. The tertiary institutions will continue to produce graduates at the same level as they would if the cost of attending the institutions remained the same. This idea that tertiary institutions will suddenly increase enrollment and produce more graduates implies that cost is the only reason for the number of students in our tertiary institutions – a concept which is fundamentally flawed.

So, making tertiary education free will not in any way exacerbate the social issue of productivity you described above. Free tertiary education will make valuable naira available to families who are struggling to send their children to Universities. Additionally, we should see a dramatic reduction in abuse of our female University students who can be seen in high class hotels in Abuja, Lagos, PH, and other University towns, sadly working as prostitutes to make ends meet.

I am sure the APC is working on a robust program to address the issue of social productivity you mentioned and I expect details of their plans will be revealed as time goes on. I am convinced however, that the cost of attending tertiary institutions has nothing to do with that problem.

BTW, I’m glad that no one seems to have serious issues with free primary and secondary education.

I understand the points being made by solomon111 and co about the need for quality education, but my question is: MUST QUALITY EDUCATION BE OVERLY EXPENSIVE?

I think the issue is getting a sense of direction as to where we see Nigeria in the 21st century. In other climes education policies are formed within the context of a national plan. India wanted to create a generation of smart, savvy software engineers, so they proactively designed an education system with emphasis on engineering, mathematics and physics. Of course the fruits are evident today, with many of the in-demand software scientists being from that country.

So we need to design an education system that matches our developmental aspirations. Do we want to become a low-tech manufacturing hub? Then train artisans. Do we want to become a centre for financial services? Then train the investment bankers. Entertainment? Where are the music and drama incubation centres? Agriculture? Then train the farmers.

My point is: Quality education that can liberate our people from the shackles of poverty and give them a shot at life is not necessarily too expensive. Let's make it cheaply available and compulsory for ALL Nigerians first. We can work on improving quality as we go along. And as we emphasise more technical/practical than theoretical education then the issue of job creation gets tackled.

^^^^ + 100%

taharqa: I didn't 'dodge' yr questns on that thread. I hvn't been feeling well for days now, so I hvn't been a fan of penning long comments or even opening new threads fos sm days now.... Merry Xmas, guy

My brother, sanu. Hope you get well soon. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you too.

ndu_chucks:
I understand your point regarding risk of higher unemployment, but I submit to you that such a risk will be non-existent or no more than what obtains today.

This should at least be a platform agenda and backed with a draft policy.

Free education does not imply that more students will be admitted to tertiary institutions or that existing tertiary institutions will by default, produce more graduates. The tertiary institutions will continue to produce graduates at the same level as they would if the cost of attending the institutions remained the same. This idea that tertiary institutions will suddenly increase enrollment and produce more graduates implies that cost is the only reason for the number of students in our tertiary institutions – a concept which is fundamentally flawed.

I agree. However, would it not make more sense to have a model that aids the scaling of enrollment and subsidy by urban classification? In other words, a 100% free education offer in rural area will appeal to parents and government can bundle a "hands on" land management training for future graduates not only trained to be doctors and lawyers but also equipped on soil cultivation, landscaping, forestry, horticulture, fisheries, pasture and other skills abundantly available in the rural towns.

So, making tertiary education free will not in any way exacerbate the social issue of productivity you described above. Free tertiary education will make valuable naira available to families who are struggling to send their children to Universities. Additionally, we should see a dramatic reduction in abuse of our female University students who can be seen in high class hotels in Abuja, Lagos, PH, and other University towns, sadly working as prostitutes to make ends meet.

Theoretically productivity is improved with highly specialized skillsets acquired through training. My point there is that our industries are not at all broadbased. Our industries are developing in retrogade to our rate of skill acquisition. We have Ajaokuta but where is our steel industry? We have timber but where is our shipyard? We have oil but we continue to serve under expatriates. So why are we continously training skills that are not moving our productivity forward? Our population is a growth, year over year, our graduation rate is forecasted to continue in upward trends, our industries are not diversified enough, nor matching the growth forecasts in population and skills. We need a model and as well an industrial revolution before we start wasting money giving more people the promises of a well paying career that may never come.

I am sure the APC is working on a robust program to address the issue of social productivity you mentioned and I expect details of their plans will be revealed as time goes on. I am convinced however, that the cost of attending tertiary institutions has nothing to do with that problem.

Im sure they have a robust plan and cant wait to see the roll out in 2014.

BTW, I’m glad that no one seems to have serious issues with free primary and secondary education.

For more coverage on the issue of population, subsidized education, skills, unemployment, industry and productivity, read this.

Nigeria is believed to have a population of about 170 million people. Statisticians inform that 60 per cent of Nigeria’s potential workforce is unemployed. Going by those statistics, though the exact figures are not known, it is frightful to imagine that perhaps up to 50 million people may be currently unemployed. Innocently, many unemployed persons and other Nigerians continue to call on the government to provide employment for them. University teachers just resumed from a six-month strike because the government said it did not have money with which to meet up with their demands.All caps are lowered to receive from a government that has no real source of sustenance, apart from the oil which foreigners milk from the Niger Delta. Even that oil is sold as crude and imported as refined fuel, which Nigerians scramble to distribute – with subsidy; while the banks round-trip the proceeds. If the gap between oil extraction and distribution of fuels and other petroleum products had been bridged internally through manufacturing, a significant percentage of the unemployed would have been mopped off the streets, productively engaged to generate valid wealth.The benefits of value added venturing are ignored to the easeful harm of the economy. The government can only absorb so many in the civil service. It is the real sector that engages unemployed youths to generate wealth. 2012 Central Bank of Nigeria figures revealed that the manufacturing sector contributed only a little over seven per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product whereas in the economies of the industrialised nations, varied manufacturing activities account for close to 50 per cent of the GDP.I once saw an importer of fabrics on TV calling on the government to support her business, which was fast shrinking because of the activities of the Chinese. According to her, the Chinese bring in cheap imitations of the fabrics she claims she imports from Europe; gradually knocking her out of business. The presenters of the programme were genuinely moved by her appeal and amplified her pleas; urging the government to support the woman and her colleagues first, because they are Nigerians and also because they were helping the economy by employing other people. The lady owns a shop at Idumota market and Ikeja GRA but had just shut down the Ikoyi branch due to “bad market.” In asking the government to check the Chinese, the lady innocently believes that the Chinese are doing damage to the economy by competing with her, whereas she is entitled to ‘serve the country’ through importation of expensive versions of what the Chinese are selling.Truth is, while the woman could be congratulated for being industrious, her kind of business is not what the government ought to be supporting in these times. This is why more Nigerians, including entrepreneurs, need to take a keener interest in trending economic issues and policies. If either the woman or the presenters of the programme had been at the Kaduna Cotton Summit 2006, where stakeholders in the local textile industry had gathered to demand loudly for the ban on the importation of fabrics, they would have understood that supporting import of textiles cannot be the government’s priority considering the nation’s economic challenges.Contemporary strategies for the strengthening of Nigeria’s economy revolve around  development of non-oil investments, increased participation of Nigerians in the oil sector through the newly created Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, import substitution, food security, manufacturing and other efforts that would create sustainable wealth,  generate employment and alleviate the gnawing poverty in the land. Central to the realisation of the aforementioned goals is the challenge of developing raw material processing activities to check the massive importation of industrial feedstock. This is one area that today’s discerning investor should focus on. It would necessarily pay the textile merchant on that TV show better to plough part of her obviously substantial capital (before it gets swallowed up by the unfair competition she is already battling) into areas that will support the growth of the local economy; to her benefit and to the benefit of generations yet unborn.A major bane of local industrial manufacturing is the dearth of local sources of raw materials. Most industries in the country are heavily import-dependent. In the words of Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa many years ago while presiding over Pfizer Pharmaceuticals as president, “Many of our industries are glorified importers.” This is so because all they have to do is to bring in processed raw materials from overseas, blend them and then package for sale. This is in spite of the fact that the raw materials for the production of feedstock for various industrial processes are abundantly available within the country.In an industrialised environment, a manufacturer does not have to also engage in the production of raw materials to feed the process. Industrial feed is supplied by companies who are specialised in those areas, processing them to specified grades to serve diverse industrial processes. In importing those products, therefore, many unemployed Nigerians, who could have been working in those factories (which could be sited in the rural areas where the resources occur), are denied the opportunity. No wonder the economy has yet to benefit substantially from the little manufacturing that currently goes on; multinational manufacturing outfits, who insist on importing feedstock from their parent companies, are often the worst culprits.


http://www.punchng.com/business/am-business/opportunities-in-primary-raw-materials-processing-1/

ImperialYoruba:
I agree. However, would it not make more sense to have a model that aids the scaling of enrollment and subsidy by urban classification? In other words, a 100% free education offer in rural area will appeal to parents and government can bundle a "hands on" land management training for future graduates not only trained to be doctors and lawyers but also equipped on soil cultivation, landscaping, forestry, horticulture, fisheries, pasture and other skills abundantly available in the rural towns.

I don’t think we disagree on very much but when we start joining unrelated issues, it would appear so. The purpose of free education, as far as tertiary institutions go is to provide relief for families who have children in our Universities. As you know, the children of our multi-millionaires and billionaires go abroad or to very high priced private universities.

No one is saying that free education should be the only program which the education ministry should focus on. Some of the good points you made above must also be looked into by the education ministry. The details of education programs are not typically found in political platforms. The point of this thread is to put folks on notice that high quality free education is very possible and will be a goal of APC.

Having said that, I agree with you that the issue of population, subsidized education, skills, unemployment, industry and productivity are very important. The current administration has obviously failed when it comes to comprehensive programs to address these issues.

It is very important to stay focused when discussing the free education issue; else we run the risk of introducing logical fallacies which may include changing of the subject. I’d recommend that you open a thread to discuss the issue of population, skills acquisition, unemployment, industry and productivity to hash them out. Great ideas are needed to tackle these issues. Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

ndu_chucks:

I don’t think we disagree on very much but when we start joining unrelated issues, it would appear so. The purpose of free education, as far as tertiary institutions go is to provide relief for families who have children in our Universities. As you know, the children of our multi-millionaires and billionaires go abroad or to very high priced private universities.

No one is saying that free education should be the only program which the education ministry should focus on. Some of the good points you made above must also be looked into by the education ministry. The details of education programs are not typically found in political platforms. The point of this thread is to put folks on notice that high quality free education is very possible and will be a goal of APC.

Having said that, I agree with you that the issue of population, subsidized education, skills, unemployment, industry and productivity are very important. The current administration has obviously failed when it comes to comprehensive programs to address these issues.

It is very important to stay focused when discussing the free education issue; else we run the risk of introducing logical fallacies which may include changing of the subject. I’d recommend that you open a thread to discuss the issue of population, skills acquisition, unemployment, industry and productivity to hash them out. Great ideas are needed to tackle these issues. Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

The last time i checked,LASU is by far the most expensive govt-owned uni in Nigeria.
Don't you think APC should start from there,or are they waiting to get to the centre before doing anything?

HNosegbe: I understand the points being made by solomon111 and co about the need for quality education, but my question is: MUST QUALITY EDUCATION BE OVERLY EXPENSIVE?

I think the issue is getting a sense of direction as to where we see Nigeria in the 21st century. In other climes education policies are formed within the context of a national plan. India wanted to create a generation of smart, savvy software engineers, so they proactively designed an education system with emphasis on engineering, mathematics and physics. Of course the fruits are evident today, with many of the in-demand software scientists being from that country.

So we need to design an education system that matches our developmental aspirations. Do we want to become a low-tech manufacturing hub? Then train artisans. Do we want to become a centre for financial services? Then train the investment bankers. Entertainment? Where are the music and drama incubation centres? Agriculture? Then train the farmers.

My point is: Quality education that can liberate our people from the shackles of poverty and give them a shot at life is not necessarily too expensive. Let's make it cheaply available and compulsory for ALL Nigerians first. We can work on improving quality as we go along. And as we emphasise more technical/practical than theoretical education then the issue of job creation gets tackled.

Education is already very cheap in Nigeria,though at unsatisfactory quality.
Making it free,which is what APC is proposing is ludacrious.
We should be looking at increasing quality which would invariably drive the cost of education up.
Quality education anywhere in the world even in india is expensive.
APC should stop preying on the ignorance of Nigerians by suggesting or proposing daftt,anti-progressive,anti-developmental policies.

solomon111: Education is already very cheap in Nigeria,though at unsatisfactory quality.
Making it free,which is what APC is proposing is ludacrious.
We should be looking at increasing quality which would invariably drive the cost of education up.
Quality education anywhere in the world even in india is expensive.
APC should stop preying on the ignorance of Nigerians by suggesting or proposing daftt,anti-progressive,anti-developmental policies.

But you haven't suggested a clear alternative. How will most Nigerians pay for the "quality" education you advocate?

Again it goes back to my initial point: Education policies must be driven by national economic and developmental objectives.

We need mass education and basic literacy for the millions of Nigerian kids out of school. When we get that, then we can move to functional skills for a technical, labour-intensive economy.

The type of education you advocate is the kind provided by Ivy-League schools for post-industrial societies, which is unsuitable for Nigeria at this time.

solomon111: The last time i checked,LASU is by far the most expensive govt-owned uni in Nigeria.
Don't you think APC should start from there,or are they waiting to get to the centre before doing anything?

Well Lagos state is not the only APC controlled state in Nigeria. Many of the APC state governors have already pledged to implement free, quality education.Take a look at [url=http://saharareporters.com/news-page/apc-governors-implement-free-education-okorocha-confirms-%E2%80%98real-apga%E2%80%99-part-merger]this photograph[/url] taken when the pledge was made last year and note that the Lagos state governor was one of those who made the pledge.

The ball of change is already rolling and I don't believe it can be stopped by negativity this time around.