Lagos – Prof. Sat Obiyan, Head of Political Science Department, Obafemi Awolowo University, has urged the new ministers in the education ministry to deal with the issue of recurrent crises in the sector.
“It is important for the ministers to partner with the various stakeholders and unions in the sector so that we will have a stable academic calendar,’’ Obiyan said on Friday.
He spoke in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
NAN reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Wednesday named Mr Adamu Adamu as Minister of Education and Prof. Anthony Anwuka as Minister of State for Education.
Obiyan said that the ministers must deal with the issue of crisis in the sector so that peace can be maintained.
He also urged them to focus on how to reposition the sector to promote technological advancement and improve the integrity of the nation’s education system.
“Funding is another crucial aspect that the present government must tackle.
“I must give commendation to the immediate-past administration because the level of intervention in terms of funding, especially in the tertiary level, is commendable.
“If the present government cannot improve on the budgetary allocation, it must sustain the policies of the past administration,’’ he said.
On the choice of the ministers, Obiyan said the president had the prerogative to determine who he appointed, but experts in the field were always preferable.
“Overall, the basic thing will be the ability to deliver, and in the end, it is the president that will be accountable for his own tenure,“ he said.
Obiyan, however, said it would have been better if portfolios had been attached to names of the ministers before their screening by the senate.
“At the level of screening, portfolios should be tied to nominees, because at that point, people will know if such person is knowledgeable for the position,’’ he said.
Another professor, Aloy Ejiogu, a former Dean, Postgraduate School, University of Lagos, said that the President meant well, but he (Ejiogu) believed the way the appointments in the education ministry were done could have been better.
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“The president means very well, but meaning very well is different from doing very well; but if he is doing very well, we are yet to see.
“Education is a profession, and only people who know it, who have experienced it, who have gone through the nitty-gritty, who know the ups and downs, who can appreciate the strength and weaknesses of the system, can manage that ministry.
“Unfortunately, Adamu Adamu; nice man, brilliant man, I know him as a journalist in his write-ups, but not an educationist.
“What worsens it is the fact that there is a professor merged with him, a former vice-chancellor; a vice-chancellor who brought a state university to be number one in accreditation programme.
“A vice-chancellor who has been chairman of governing councils of universities and chairman of governing councils of polytechnics and colleges of education.
“To say he will be a minister of state under someone who should be seeking advice from him does not look proper,’’ he said.
The former dean said that he believed it would have been better if the portfolios had been in the reverse.
He, however, said that the president may have other criteria which were unknown. (NAN)