As Nigeria enters into a new decade, stakeholders in the education sector have advocated that Nigeria Education Institutions at all levels should be encouraged and supported to develop strong internal quality assurance mechanism to drive the sector process.
They observe that across the global, countries that thrive in all sectors of their economy did embrace education as their bed rock, adding that a nation is a good as the kind of education system it operates.
Experts posit that there is external quality assurance mechanism in Nigeria focused towards assisting Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria to meet Global standards.
Ontonti Nduka, former President Nigeria Academy of Education was quoted to have said that quality assurance is an indispensable process for achieving the national goals in education which will in turn lead to the production of qualitative human capital for sustainable national development.
Nduka was clear when he asserts that building blocks for solid foundation of quality assurance at the territory level of education are laid at the basic and secondary education levels.
The university don observed that the efforts aimed at strengthening quality assurance mechanism in Nigeria Education should include, parading in shift from inspection monitoring and evaluation to quality assurance.
Another challenge militating against quality assurance is corrupt practices in the education sector. Poor funding and in adequate infrastructures also work against the goal of quality assurance. The politicisation of appointments of chief Executive Officers of Educational institutions and escalation and erosion of academic culture in tertiary instituting are also serious factors militating against quality assurance in education.
According to him, “Introduction of school based management committee (SBMC).Whole school development planning (WSDP) and whole school Education (WSE) and introduction of institutional accreditation along with programmed accreditation at the universal level are also expedient in the quest for quality control.
He however called on Government to expedite action on the legislative frame work for the proposed national commission for quality assurance as this would go a long way towards the harmonising and improving quality assurance at the different levels of education sector.
KELECHI EWUZIE
