Radiyah Omotayo Yahya, director, quality assurance department, Kwara State Ministry of Tertiary Education, has emphasised the need to encourage educational institutions to develop plans for improved education standard in Nigeria.
Yahya, whose office is saddled with the responsibility of monitoring and evaluation of academic and non-academic activities in all tertiary institutions (public and private) in Kwara, stated this in an interview with BusinessDay on Monday.
She pointed out that education being a social service cannot be singlehandedly borne by the government, but in partnership with public spirited individuals are investing in the provision of tertiary education.
She, however, decried that in response to the annual rise in the number of students seeking admission into the universities, polytechnics or colleges of education, some persons are exploiting them (students) in their disguise and unaccredited institutions.
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“But there are procedures and policies for recognition and approval to operate a tertiary institution. This is because the graduates return back to the society, hence the inclusion of other stakeholders to provide standard education.
“Tertiary education is more of teaching and learning, research and community service. All these can be achieved with a dedicated leadership, management team, and the community accessing where the school is located, all have relevance to the type of education being offered in institutions today.
“Imparting quality education entails engaging the institutions through constant quality assurance monitoring and evaluation. The inputs, processes and outputs are being assessed by regulatory bodies to ensure the minimum standards.
“Quality education can be said to be achieved when our graduates are ‘fit for purpose’.
According to her, outputs are trained to be fit as job creators, for employment and or fit for further studies as the case maybe.
She explained that all tiers of learning have regulatory bodies ensuring that the quality of inputs, ranging from the curriculum guides, course/programme and duration, students’ admissibility and teachers’ qualifications and adequacy, provision of infrastructural facilities like laboratories, workshop, office accommodation, and recreational facilities are all provided and suitable for the level it is meant for.
“It must be ensured that learners are certified as trained and educated in entrepreneurship so that they can be economically independent, employable or study further.
“If all these procedures and steps are taken into consideration and properly executed, the quality of education in our country would be better and the rate at which Nigerians travel abroad for further education would be minimised”, she said.
