Posted by ANDY ASEMOTA, Katsina on
Several major initiatives and implementation strategies of the past administration's reform agenda have been frozen by President Umar Musa Yar'Adua.
Several major initiatives and implementation strategies of the past administration's reform agenda have been frozen by President Umar Musa Yar'Adua.
In a marathon speech at the opening of the 54th Ministerial Session of the National Council on Education (NCE), held in Katsina on Friday, the Minister of Education, Dr. Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu, announced that the present administration has frozen the implementation of the proposal to merge Federal Polytechnics and Colleges of Education into contiguous and proximate Federal Universities.
Nwachukwu also revealed, among others, the decision of Federal Government to stop the dis-articulation of Junior from Senior secondary schools.
He said the redefining of the Obasanjo reform agenda and processes was in conformity to the stance of the current administration to the rule of law and its resolve to carry all stake holders along for synergy.
The minister, whose 20-page speech was punctuated with intermittent rounds of applause and a standing ovation after the address, added that the Federal Government had decided to "step down these hybrid privatisation of the management of Federal Unity Schools and restore the junior secondary school components of FUCS"
Nwachukwu described the decision of the past administration on FUCS as a serious draw back to facilitating national understanding, cohesion and harmony, through the institutions.
Reviewing the consolidation of Federal Tertiary educational institutions, he contended that the proposal was very flawed and did not recognise the necessity for expanding access to and substantially improving the quality of tertiary education.
Another major product of the reform in the nation's education system revisited by the Federal Government, he said, is the
Policy on Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP).
Said he: "We shall revisit this laudable programme by strengthening it to ensure that food served in schools has local taste and customs, meet nutritional needs of children, locally available and easy to prepare".
The Minister charged all stakeholders in the sector to support the strong commitment of the present administration to education.
"We are committed to a reform process that would capacitate the education sector to competently anchor and facilitate this national transformation", he vowed.
Declaring the session open, Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema of Katsina State , disclosed that the state government, from 1999 to date, had expended over N30 billion on the development of the education sector.
The governor who was represented by his deputy, Alhaji Sirajo Umar Damari, said the government of Katsina, under then Governor Umar Musa Yar'adua, now the President of Nigeria, began a conscious re-organisation of its education sector to address the infrastructural decay and neglect the entire sector suffered in the past.
Shema who described education as the basis for all developmental policies and programmes, charged the NCE to review the execution and management techniques of the country's education policies in tune with the realities of the current realities and global expectations.
He advised: "our society cannot, and should not, attempt to employ yesterday's tools to solve problems of tomorrow, or even those of today, because they will not give satisfactory solutions".