By Olamilekan FAWAS
The President of Coscharis Group Ltd., Mr Cosmas Maduka, has urged the Federal Government to invest more in the education sector for the country to have a productive workforce for its development.
Maduka, who made the assertion when he visited the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos, said Nigeria’s education system required complete overhaul to achieve the desired development.
“Our education system needs to be completely overhauled. We cannot just be talking about moving the country forward without first doing the needful.
“This therefore, calls for better funding of the sector for us to have the necessary technology, matching infrastructure as well as putting in place, more structures.
“It is not like we do not have human capacity, of course, we have abundance if it but that does not in any way mean we should not intensify efforts in producing more.
“We need to improve on the public universities as the gaps they leave are some of the areas where the private universities are trying to utilise to sustain their manpower development.
“We must understand that if we fail to educate the citizenry, we will not have a future. With the way the world is going today, in another 10 to 15 years, we are going to be talking of artificial intelligence.
“You must build the capacity of our people to be able to compete in the modern world,’’ he said.
He noted that countries like Haiti had in the past, used to be the richest in the world but poor utilisation of that country’s resources cost them the current situation they found themselves in.
He warned on the need for the government to rededicate its commitment to the development of education sector as this was one of the reasons why the fees of some private universities were high, thereby making it almost impossible for the average Nigerian to access education.
He noted that currently, the country did not have enough universities that would provide the much needed access to education for the youth that aspire to qualitative education.
“If you take a look at the rate of the country’s population growth, I believe you will agree with me that the university is one area that must be drastically improved upon.
“This is because as a country, we must strive to take it upon ourselves to equip our young people with up-to-date curriculum as well as create the enabling environment that will guarantee academic excellence.
“This curriculum must be tailored to meet with the demands of the 21st century, using adequate infrastructure.
“A country like Korea built their economic miracle on the workforce they developed by educating its citizenry and equipping them with all they require to face the challenges ahead to succeed,’’ the business mogul said.
The industrialist said that Nigeria would only make any meaningful progress in terms of being a productive nation if it went back to the basics by looking inwards and investing hugely in the education system.
