Osundare Backs Call For StateOfEmergency In Education Sector

Delivering the keynote address at the official launch of Ikogosi Graduate Summer School (IGSS) at Ikogosi, Ekiti State, Professor Niyi Osundare who threw his weight behind Professor Wole Soyinka’s call for a declaration of a state of emergency in the education sector said, there is a lot of truth in what he said. “Let us dismantle it and rebuild again. It may not be that drastic as there are a lot of rooms for improvement.” He posited that the setback in Nigeria’s education sector was due to government’s inability for many years to rectify it, noting that it is always easy to destroy but difficult to build. According to him, we are reaping the result of our education which went backward for two decades. The poet said that in declaring a state of emergency, we have to look at the various institutions in the country to know those that qualify and those that parade themselves as universities in Nigeria. “How many are qualified as universities, how many are there to teach and how many were established for the purpose of profit and ego?” He pointed out that the 129 universities in Nigeria are too many as many of them lack the qualities of a university. The solution according to him, is not in the numbers of students who gain admission into the universities but in quality of education they receive. “Setting up mushroom universities is going to compound the problems,” he added. Osundare who urged the Federal Government to revalidate and strengthen the existing universities, disclosed that expanding the existing ones to accommodate the teeming youths seeking admission will place the sector in a better position. To revamp the sector, he added, there must be a change in our attitude saying success or failure come from inside. The professor who believes money is not our problem in Nigeria but how to judiciously spend it, stated that money generated in this country can fix the sector if our government set their priority right. “Government has to reorganise its priority