Owolabi Falana, a permanent board member of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB), said engagement of the private sector players will bring about an improved situation in the state’s education system. He made the declaration at this year’s NEDIS Education Innovation Summit hosted by The Education Partnership Centre in Lagos.
Falana explained that in Nigeria there are 20 million out-of-school children and the country does not have enough physical infrastructure to house them stakeholders step up the advocacy to bring the out-of-school children back to school.
He said: “If we successfully bring the students back to school, we may not have the facility to house all of them and that is where we need the private sector to collaborate with us so as we are bringing the students back to school, and when the government schools are filled up then we can put them in some private schools.”
He added that collaboration with the private schools would require a recertification exercise to ensure that they have minimum standards across board on what is required of them.
According to UNESCO, Nigeria has about 20 million out-of-school children. There are 244 million children and youth between the ages of six and 18 worldwide who are still out of school. And UNICEF says that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.
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Falana however noted that on a long-term basis, the government will expand the physical infrastructure in line with the aspirations to bring out-of-school children back to school.
Joy Abara, head of recruitment, selection and matriculation, Teach for Nigeria emphasized the need to have non-state actors such as private school owners on board.
“We need the collaboration of the private sectors which involve non-state actors, non-profit organisations and the public sector to ensure our children are learning adequately,” Abara said.
To develop education, experts offered varied solutions.
According to Falana, the current curriculum should be restrategized as doing this will, directly and indirectly, boost the economy, have positive bearing on critical areas such as robotics and industrialisation.
Utibe Henshaw, program manager of The Education Partnership Centre said “skills and competency should be the driver of education in Nigeria and then infrastructure can follow after that.”
