Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has said that the current constitutional provision where the educational qualification for elective offices is pegged at secondary school certificate should be reviewed and pegged at a higher qualification.


Gbajabiamila also bemoaned a situation where despite the change around the globe, Nigeria has not done enough in government, the academia, and society to adjust its education and skills acquisition system to meet these new realities.


While delivering a paper titled, “Building Back Better: Creating A New Framework for Tertiary Education In Nigeria In the 21st Century,” at the 52nd Convocation of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), yesterday, Gbajabiamila said there was the strong need to come up with pragmatic ways of addressing the problems in Nigeria’s education sector.


“I also sincerely believe that the National Assembly needs to look into section 131 (d) of the 1999 constitution with a view to increasing the minimum educational qualification for persons aspiring to be future Presidents of Nigeria and other top offices including the National Assembly as against the current minimum requirement of a Secondary School Certificate or its equivalent.”


He said: “As we have reduced the age for eligibility to contest those offices so also, we should increase the minimum educational requirement. It will be another step in reforming our electoral system and providing strong leadership for the country.”


Commenting more on the education sector, Gbajabiamila expressed optimism that it could be put back on the right track, as he offered some solutions to some of the problems.


He said, “What does this moment require of us? It requires first that we be honest about the scale of the challenges we face. Honesty about the scale of the challenges we face and the realities of our present circumstances free us to engage in the sort of radical thinking and innovation that would have been considered taboo just a few years ago.


“How do we move on from our present circumstances? Most national policy discussions of higher education focus on questions of structure and financing, understandably so because the problems in this regard are many and unresolved. However, there are essential issues of curriculum, teaching methods, assessment and fairness that should engage our minds too and be part of any reform propositions.


“Wholesale reviews of our curricula and teaching methods to situate our practices in the context of global labour needs is the bare minimum. This does not take away from the need to institute a programme of aggressive and sustained investment in the physical infrastructure of classrooms and lecture halls and technology hardware and software to facilitate information exchange and innovation.”


The foundations of Nigeria’s educational system are still rooted in a different age and designed to meet the social, economic and labour demands of a different societal and economic model, the speaker has said.


The speaker, who is an alumnus of UNILAG, said: “When we consider the problems of education infrastructure, access to educational opportunities, quality of instruction, the welfare of teachers, lecturers and professors, we will do well to remember that all of these factors matter only to the extent that they are necessary to build institutions that produce citizens who can advance the cause of Nigeria.


“Our world has changed. The old certainties from which we derived assurance and built our expectations no longer exist. The value of the extractive industries that have powered our economy has deteriorated. It continues to do so rapidly, as technological advances lead us toward a future where coal, crude and gas are replaced by renewable alternatives of solar, wind and water.


“For Nigerian citizens to thrive in this new world, participate fully and productively in the new global economy and benefit from rather than be consumed by the technological advancements that are changing our world, tertiary education in Nigeria must be prepared to embrace reinvention and adapt to disruption.


“In a digital age, where socioeconomic participation is based on intellectual ability and access to information, a purposeful and well-rounded education is a fundamental human right because the individual’s ability to participate fully in society depends almost entirely on the quality of education available to them.


“Unfortunately, it is still the case that the foundations of our educational system are rooted in a different age and designed to meet the social, economic and labour demands of a different societal and economic model. As the world has changed, we have not done enough in government, academia, and society to adjust our education and skills acquisition system to meet these new realities.”


Gbajabiamila noted that a good education produces citizens invested in the progress and wellbeing of their society with the wherewithal to take positive action to make those societies better.


“When we think about education policy, when we consider laws and implement directives relating to education in our country, particularly tertiary education, our highest objective must be to deliver an education system capable of producing this archetype of an individual,” he said.