Funmi Olaitan, Ibadan

Minister of Education, Mr Adamu Adamu, has been called upon to declare emergency in the country's education sector.

Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan, Mr Deji Omole, who made the call in a statement issued on Sunday, challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that the kind of education Nigerian children are exposed to is of global standard and at par with what his children had in their schools abroad.

He said it became imperative for the Minister to be reminded that the future of the children of the masses must not be used to play politics with the declaration and wondered why in the last week of April, the plan to declare emergency in the sector had not been perfected.

According to him, it was sad for a government that fails to improve access to education for teeming millions of youth yearning for education to state that the same youth are sitting down and waiting for freebies.

He said, “What has the government done to salvage the condition 12 million out of school children in Nigeria? What has government done to ensure employment for over 16 million unemployed Nigerians? What plan does the government have for graduates who go through the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) every year but frustrated by lack of job and hostile environment to even start small and medium scale businesses? If the government fails to attend to the needs of the Youth today, they will become nightmares for Nigeria in the future.”

While recalling that the Minister had raised the hopes of declaring emergency in the educational sector of the country in April this year apparently to proffer solutions to the low quality of education being offered Nigerian children, he wondered about the methodology to be used in upgrading quantity to quality education following the paltry seven per cent of the national budget allocated to education by the Buhari administration.

The ASUU boss who lashed out at Buhari-led administration for not investing in the future of Nigeria through education but invests in propaganda, noted that majority of those in government enjoyed free education, health and other social services when they were younger in Nigeria.

Omole then lamented that despite enjoying the best in their youth days, the kind of education being given to Nigerian children are below universal standards.