FG has no business being in education – Agbakoba

Olisa Agbakoba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has argued for restructuring, lean government, and devolution of powers over education, to state governments.

Agbakoba, who spoke on Arise Television news on how to improve education in Nigeria frowned at a situation where candidates in different states of the federation have different cut-off marks to enter the same school.

“It is an imbalance for children going to the same school to be required to have different waited marks. That is complete imbalance!” he said.

The renowned advocate decried the federal government’s decision to give different cut-off marks to students from different states of Nigeria. Candidates from Abia State were required to score 130, Anambra State -139, Delta State -131, Enugu State -134, Imo State -138, Lagos State -133, and Ogun State -131.

While candidates from Kebbi State were give -2 and 20, Taraba -3 and 11, Yobe -2 and 27, and Zamfara State -4 and 2 for males and females respectively.

This he said is not good for the unity of the country.

Agbakoba also gave insight on the way out of this wood, and that he said is to devolve power.

“I do not see what the federal government is doing being in education in the first place. If you have the possibility of devolving education to states, each state should be able to set up its own guidelines and criteria, and I think there will be no problem. So whatever state wishes to have high marks or low marks, it is up to it. It is all about restructuring and devolution of powers,” he noted.

Read also: 5 Issues we must address now for every child to access quality education

Recall that the federal government last month released the results of the 2022 National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) to the 110 Federal Government Colleges across the country also known as Unity Schools.

Adamu Adamu, the minister of education announced the release of the results after Ibrahim Wushishi, the registrar of the National Examination Council (NECO) presented the results of the examination conducted on Saturday, May 7, 2022, in Nigeria, as well as the Benin Republic and Togo.

Adamu, who was represented by David Adejo, the permanent secretary at the news conference announced the results, noting that the National Common Entrance Examination was for admission into Junior Secondary School (JSS 1) of Federal Unity Colleges.