Thursday, 27 November 2008
The Senate Committee on Education has warned that prospects of achieving the vision 20-2020 goals of the administration were endangered by the falling standard of education.

The Committee at a press briefing heralding the forthcoming education summit noted Nigeria’s ranking as the 18th country less favoured to achieve the 2015 goal of Education For All (EFA) by UNESCO.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Joy Emodi flanked by a committee member, Senator Kaka Mallam Yale, disclosed that former Head of State, Chief Ernest Shonekan would chair the education summit next month aimed at articulating a legislative response to the falling standard of education.

The summit involving stakeholders from the sector would also involve members of the state Houses of Assembly and other stakeholders.

“The present UNESCO report showed that Nigeria came 18th to the last among the nations not likely to achieve that goal; meanwhile we have another goal to be one of the largest twenty economies,’’ Senator Emodi said in response to the UNESCO report on the Education For All (EFA) achievements of about 150 countries.

“If we don’t achieve education for all how are we going to be one of the major twenty economies in year 2020, it is not possible. Apart from that, the yardstick for measuring development is nothing but education, especially quality education,’’ Senator Emodi said.

Noting the repeated strike actions in the nation’s educational system and other problems that have plagued the sector, Senator Emodi said:

“The above scenarios call for serious concerted efforts by all stakeholders to design strategies for salvaging the situation and engineering Nigerian education to a path of recovery and proficiency,’’ Senator Emodi added.

“With legislative responsibility to allocate funds to education, the Senate Committee, in effect intends to use the summit to cause a comprehensive review of the Nigerian education system to identify and effectively resolve contending resource injection, and consequently facilitate the re-modeling of the education system to achieve national goals.’’

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