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Leaders Tasked On Tertiary EducationLeaders Tasked On Tertiary Education
This Day
Funmi Ogundare
26 June 2007
Nigerian leaders would do better addressing the challenges facing the education sector, rather than sending their wards to study overseas, the Director of the Hyde -Park Group, Mrs. Tokunbo Adeyemi said.
Speaking at a British Canadian International Education (BCIE) Fair on opportunities to study in the UK, held in Lagos recently, Adeyemi regretted the incessant strikes in the country's education system, which make the country's leaders to send their children abroad rather than seek ways of addressing the problems in the sector.
She said, "Our leaders have to go back and develop a passion for students. They all have their children abroad. A study on world education ranking has just being released. It is a shame that we are nowhere to be found not even among the first 500"
The lecturers, Mrs. Adeyemi stressed, should be paid wages commensurate with those of their counterparts abroad as that is the only way to check the brain drain. The students will also get the best from them.
"Our professors are abroad because they are better paid. We also have a problem where ASUU is agitating for an increase in salary and the government is saying it can not afford it. What has happened to the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and other taxes?
She recalled her encounter with a man who had brought his son to register at the Fair and was told he needed to pay £100,000 for the son to study Medicine in the UK. The Director said that the man would have to go home and think about how he would cough out such a huge amount. "Studying abroad is so expensive. The man was worried. But that does not mean he would keep his son here in Nigeria because it might take seven to 10 years to finish a five-year course", she said.
She urged President Umaru Yar'adua invest more in the country's education so as to improve its international rating. "Luckily the President was a lecturer. He has an idea of how education should be not only in the country but in the world. We need to be rated high", she said.
Participants at the Fair included, Brunnel University, University of Wales, Bagor, Conventry University, University of Hull, Loughborough University, London South Bank University, among others.
A potential student, Mr. Eugene Prince Ibali said he saw the need to travel to the UK to study because Nigerians who do so have better job opportunities even in Nigeria. Mr. Stephen Vary, a lecturer in London South Bank University saw Africa as a market to attract students, saying confidently that his university has that "extra education" that they need.
Another lecturer from the University of Hull, Mr. Matthew Hornshaw said his university offers DFID scholarship for academically sound but poor students, who may not be able to pay the fees. According to him, "not every university offers DFID scholarship, we had three Ghanaians and one Tanzanian last year and this year we have two of the students in Bridge House College for a half scholarship to university level.
Copyright © 2007 This Day
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