By Seun Opejobi The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has hinted that the new education curriculum will focus on skills and entrep...
By Seun Opejobi
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has hinted that the
new education curriculum will focus on skills and entrepreneurship to enhance
graduates’ employability.
Speaking at a one day ‘Transforming Education Summit’
organized by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on Thursday in Abuja,
Adamu noted that the whole world is now focusing on education because of the
central role it plays.
Represented by the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary
Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Sonny Echono, the minister said the summit,
which is being held ahead of the global summit in September in New York by the
United Nations Secretary, provides an opportunity to brainstorm on the many
challenges facing Nigeria’s education sector such as poor funding,
out-of-school children among others, as to find a sustainable solution and transform
the sector.
According to him, five thematic areas have been identified
for discussion “The issue of curriculum, for example, it has become important
that the education sector should be increasingly more relevant and the changing
role of the teacher being a facilitator rather than an absolute harbinger of
knowledge.
“The type of curriculum that will now focus more on skills,
entrepreneurship because we want to enhance employability. As we have been
preaching, we don’t want to produce graduates that are looking for government
employment,” he said.
The minister stated that the president has approved an
institute in Abuja that resembles the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) which will serve as a hub where all the top ideas for growing the country
will be incubated and released for various sectors of our economy. According to
him, this institute will take off this year.
Also speaking, Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communication
and Digital Economy commended the NUC for developing a new curriculum for
Nigerian Universities, saying it was apt due to the rate of unemployability of
graduates in the country.
“We always complain about unemployment, I agree that there
is unemployment but the percentage is not as we think. The significant
challenge we have in Nigeria is the problem of unemployability, this is the
major problem particularly when it comes to sciences, engineering, and
technology.
“We need to provide the relevant skills so that they will be
able to confront any challenge and can be able to apply for any job globally,”
he said.
Pantami further explained that soft skills are most sought
after especially in big tech companies such as critical thinking, analytical
thinking, collaborative skills, project management, problem-solving, and
presentation skills, among others.
“Today if you apply for a job in the global tech giant, they
hardly ask you about the university you attended or class of degree but are
interested in knowing your hard skills and soft skills this is what they bare
interested in,” he stressed.
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