FLOC 5.0: DAWN, NUC, Others to Seek Education Reform for Jobs, Innovation     

Funmi Ogundare 

The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, National Universities Commission (NUC) and other stakeholders are expected to converge on Abeokuta, Ogun State, on October 15, to explore how Nigeria can re-engineer its education system to drive industrialisation, innovation, productivity and job creation.

The stakeholders will participate in the fifth edition of the For the Love of the Country (FLOC) conference and symposium, themed, ‘Building a Prosperous Future: Re-Engineering Education and Driving Industrialisation for Innovation, Productivity and Jobs’.

The symposium is expected to bring together policymakers, academics, business leaders, development experts, civic leaders and representatives of the education and industrial sectors to examine practical strategies for building a more productive and prosperous Nigeria.

The convener of FLOC, Atinuke Odjenima, said the 2026 edition was designed to shift the national conversation from identifying Nigeria’s challenges to building the capabilities required to address them.

She said the symposium would interrogate how Nigeria could develop an education system capable of producing the skills required by industries, transform those skills into productive enterprises and quality jobs, and strengthen institutions to sustain innovation and productivity.

“The time has come for Nigeria to move beyond conversations about what is wrong and focus more deliberately on building the capabilities required to change our reality,” Odjenima said.

“This year’s symposium is about asking practical questions: What kind of education system do we need to produce the skills our industries require? How do we turn those skills into productive enterprises and quality jobs? And what institutions must we strengthen to sustain that progress?”

According to her, the choice of Ogun State as the host of symposium 5.0 was deliberate because of the state’s combination of educational institutions and industrial activities.

She noted that universities, polytechnics and technical institutions in the state operate alongside manufacturing plants, agro-processing hubs and other industrial developments, creating an opportunity to examine how education and industry could work more closely together.

“We chose Ogun state because it offers an important context for this conversation. Here, education, skills development, manufacturing and industrial activity exist within the same economic ecosystem,” she said.

“It gives us an opportunity to examine what is working, what needs to change and how we can scale those lessons across Nigeria. The future we want will not be built by slogans; it will be built by people with the right skills, productive industries and institutions that work.”

Odjenima said Nigeria must move from discussing the future to building the capabilities needed to deliver it, stressing that education, industry and institutions had complementary roles to play in the process.

“Education must produce relevant skills, industry must create opportunities for those skills, and our institutions must provide the foundation for productivity and innovation,” she added.

The 2026 symposium, Odjenima said,  would examine how Nigeria could strengthen the relationship between education and industry, re-engineer its education system to respond to the changing economy and develop a workforce equipped for modern industry.

Other areas of focus would include strengthening local production and building institutions capable of supporting innovation and productivity.

She added that Ogun State’s economic profile, which includes activities in construction materials, food processing, pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods, logistics and light assembly, made it a practical setting for the discussions.

“The convergence of education and industrial activity reflected the central proposition of symposium 5.0: that education produces capability, while industry converts capability into jobs, productivity and prosperity.

FLOC, the Convener, noted, is a civic and nation-building platform, with the objective of promoting constructive dialogue on governance, public policy, economic development and national transformation.

“The platform brings together political economists, policymakers, business leaders, development experts, civic leaders and other stakeholders, based on the belief that nation-building should involve citizens and not be left to government alone,” she stated.

Odjenima said the event would provide stakeholders with an opportunity to move beyond broad discussions and interrogate practical strategies for building a productive economy supported by relevant skills, strong institutions and sustainable industries.