BusinessDay’s maiden Education Summit and launch of its Lagos Good Schools Guide, which held Tuesday, have been commended by stakeholders as coming at an appropriate time when the Nigeria’s education system needs major reforms.
The theme “Realigning education with market demands, role of private sector as catalyst” was chosen to drive conversation around the kind of partnerships that would deliver education for the future. Creating an education system that adequately prepares Nigeria’s largely youthful population is perhaps the single most important issue facing Africa’s most populous nation.
Accelerating technology and social shifts are driving massive change in the global economy. Fast-paced innovations are transforming industries both old and new and generating tremendous new opportunities for value creation but to tap into this, high quality, relevant education is needed.
“Delivering high quality education is a universal duty and requires a universal approach. What we seek to do today is galvanise interest for the kind of collaboration needed to create the kind of education we need and the needed partnership to bring this about. It is estimated that if all the children in poor countries can read global poverty would be reduced by 12 percent” said Frank Aigbogun, the publisher and CEO, BusinessDay Media Ltd in his opening remark.
“To overhaul Nigeria’s education system, a 10 – 15 year mindset would be required but our thinking is usually a four year cycle. I am really happy about the concern shown for education by the senate president. We do not have much time, let us get to work” Aigbogun added.
Deep long term reform, the type that will make Nigeria more competitive would also necessitate new forms of partnerships that will be catalysed by the private sector in an enabling consistent education policy environment. This is all critical considering the impact of over N38 trillion spent on schools from 1999 to 2016.
“It is evident that the days when government was the sole creator of jobs and work are gone. We need an education system that is in sync with this reality. Public-private partnerships are surely the way forward but we must unpack our concept of the private sector” said Pai Obanya, emeritus professor, Institute of Education at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
“In this sense, we need tripartite or three level synergic partnerships to revitalise education in Nigeria. So, the public is understood to represent government. But when we speak of the private sector in Nigeria we generally mean the organised private sector or industries. This is limited because we have to start taking non-governmental organisations a lot more seriously as we think through our education reforms” Obanya said.
In this light, charities, voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises and cooperatives, think tanks and private research institutes are key stakeholders in addition to organised profit driven private sector.
Obanya contented that education has changed, “we no longer simply feed the students but arouse their interests these days. When I talk of education, I talk about education with capital E and to equate education to school is to be reductionist, we need to integrate this into our understanding and policy formulation in education.”
Obanya emphasised that to get it right, policy formulation in education must go beyond the buying-in paradigm where government does everything and expects others to simply buy in without first consulting. This also means moving away from the chipping in paradigm where government builds infrastructure and the private sector merely donates equipment.
This means addressing education sector challenges at their roots. It means dealing with the policy environment which suffers from inconsistency and imposition.
In his address, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, president of the Nigerian senate, represented by Tijani Yahaya, the chairman, senate committee on Federal Character pointed to various international human rights instruments that provide for education as a fundamental human right.
“It is therefore in recognition of this importance that I must pause to commend and congratulate the organisers of this Summit, BusinessDay Media Limited for deeming it necessary to put together a veritable platform comprising esteemed relevant stakeholders” Saraki said.
“The concept of public-private partnership may be such that involves joint ownership in the training and acquisition of skills in education. This can be further realised through joint ownership of the concession or venture, contracted or lease agreement” the senate president added.
High point of the Summit was the launch of BusinessDay’s Lagos Good Schools Guide, designed to help parents and stakeholders evaluate both the quality and choice of schools in Lagos. Purchase of the Guide comes with one month free subscription to BusinessDay online content and discount for the second purchase.
