Yinka Kolawole
A university don, Professor Dayo Alao, has called on the Federal Government to ensure adequate productivity at all levels.
Alao, who is the Vice Chancellor of Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, made the call yesterday during a chat with newsmen and noted that it was high time the natural resources that God had blessed Nigeria with, particularly in agriculture, were maximally exploited.
According to him, a lot of such resources had been wasting away, adding that if well exploited, they would go a long way in boosting the economy of the nation.
“Owing to the crude oil which used to be the main stay of the economy, we forgot our groundnut pyramid, cocoa and cotton that God has blessed us with. But it’s unfortunate that oil money is no more. We have over slept. That is why we are having a problem now,” he said.
“To get out of the present economic mess which has made life difficult for us, the Federal Government has to be proactive by encouraging everybody to be productive, especially those in the rural areas who have access to land and engage in agriculture. There are a lot of agricultural products that must be exploited which can help boost our export profile. It is high time people stopped starching money away in foreign accounts but plug it into useful economic ventures ,” he added.
Motivate School Quality Assurance Officers, Lawmaker Advises Govt
Lagos State Government has been advised to adequately motivate quality assurance officers for the schools for the development of education in the state.
Speaking at a meeting of the Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Education with Quality Assurance Officers in the state, Chairman of the committee, Hon. Olanrewaju Ogunyemi said that it was important to make sure that the birds that lay the golden eggs are taken care of.
“We must make sure that we provide all the necessary equipment for our Quality Assurance Officers such as all the necessary equipments, speed boats should be made available for them to visit riverine areas. We must make sure that their offices are conducive, and we must give them adequate equipment to prepare their reports.
“Also, we want to ensure that the resources of the government are optimally utilised. Thank God for the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for the recruitment of 1,300 teachers for primary schools and for the planned recruitment of 1,000 teachers for secondary schools,” he said.
He said further that the meeting, which held on Friday at the Lateef Jakande Auditorium at the Assembly premises, attracted over 500 quality assurance officers in Lagos State, Zonal Directors in the Quality Assurance office, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Tutor Generals/Permanent Secretaries, secretaries of education in the local governments/local council development areas and the leaders of SUBEB.
The lawmaker emphasised that the purpose it to ensure that all the efforts of the government on education yield the ultimate goals that are desired in education.
The essence of the meeting, he said, is to look at how the schools in the state have fared so far and that it was important to ensure that there is all round quality education in the state.
“The only way to do that is to bring all the officers together so that we can look at the way forward. There is paucity of fund and the government has contending challenges from all the sectors. We also see how the Internally Generated Revenue for the government can be strongly be enhanced,” he added.
According to him, where an inspector visits a school once in a term is not acceptable, saying that where they do so with their personal vehicles is not encouraging, and that where an inspector arrives the school in tricycle or motorcycle is not acceptable.
He said: “We must make sure that we monitor our schools and restore public confidence in the schools. If the schools are not inspected, we will not be able to ensure standard. With the meeting, we will make the necessary recommendations to the government.”
On the state of education in Nigeria after 56 years of the nation’s independence, he said that the country has not had it too badly, but that we are not there yet.
He stressed that a lot of the nation’s universities should go beyond theory, and that they must be research based, and technologically-driven, but that all of these require so much resources.
“Our universities, polytechnics, technical colleges and colleges of education should not be glorified institutions, they should move to work-class universities. In the first 100 universities in the world, none is from Nigeria. If we have standard universities, it would help our institutions,” he said.
Condemning strike actions in schools, Ogunyemi stated that the management of the nation’s institutions should be pro-active, and that they need to ensure that they engage the students rather than confronting them.
He explained that despite the fact that there is need for discipline, it must be done with all sense of responsibilities.
“Our schools went on strike based on conditions of service for the lecturers or poor arrangement for the students and these are issues that we need to address.
“The authority must be pro-active and they must be ready to create solutions to all our problems. Closure of schools is not the solutions. There are too many strikes and this does not help our educational development,” he said.
