Wednesday 26 January 2011

Ribadu on Education

Awareness
In terms of education, Ribadu seems to be aware of the problem - in its scope, scale, causes and implications. He highlights the role of education for the economic and social development of the country and the need to make education a priority. The plan acknowledges the full range of issues in education: the issues of access to and capacity of educational institutions; the lack of a unified programme on education; the problem of specific disadvantage groups (girl child, alamjiri, nomads etc) and the issue of quality assurance. However, it doesn't address Universal Basic Education (UBE) explicitly.

Ambition
The plan doesn't lay out exactly what it wants to address or how. There is a specific reference made to the priority of funding and the need to meet the UNESCO recommendation on funding education. It also mentions the need to create a unified body in charge of education as well as improved inspection of schools. If we assume that every issue raised is to be addressed, then the plan is very ambitious but otherwise it lacks any real ambition.

Detail
The document is very detailed in its awareness of the problem, however it is very scanty on detail in regards to his goals and even more so in terms of how they are to be achieved.

My View
Education is important and should be the priority of any new government. It has the power to ameliorate a lot of the other problems facing Nigeria. Ribadu does a good job of expounding the problem but for me doesn't stress the importance of education. I think he should have made a commitment to UBE not just in the quantitative aspect of 100% education but in the qualitative aspects in regards to staff and facility. I personally would reduce the focus on secondary and tertiary education from the federal budget. Instead I would focus more on industry-specific vocational training (for agriculture, factory work etc)
The plan does well to identify minority groups ( girls, nomads etc) that need to be addressed; and while I agree, I would focus more on female education as this is the fairest way (not ethnic/region specific) and will have the widest reaching social, economic and health effect.

Scores (out of 5)
Awareness: 4.5
Ambition: 2.0
Detail : 1.0
My view: 2.5

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