Nigeria’s Ministry of Education has announced its creation of a new curriculum for Tertiary Education.
Malam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, disclosed that the new education curriculum being developed will focus on skills and entrepreneurship to increase the employment rate among graduates.
While speaking at a one-day ‘Transforming Education Summit’ by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on Thursday In Abuja, the minister’s representative, the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono noted that the world now focuses on education for its central role in nation’s development.
He said;
“The issue of curriculum for example, it has become important that the education sector should be increasingly more relevant and the changing role of the teacher being a facilitator rather than absolute harbinger of knowledge.
The type of curriculum that will now focus more on skills, and entrepreneurship, we want to enhance employability. As we have been preaching, we don’t want to produce graduates that are looking for government employment.”
He noted that the summit which is being held ahead of the global summit in September in New York by the United Nations Secretary provides an opportunity to brainstorm on the many challenges facing Nigeria’s education sector such as poor funding, and out-of-school children among others.
The minister stated that the president has approved an institute in Abuja that resembles the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which will serve as a hub where all the top ideas for growing the country will be set and released for various sectors of the nation’s economy. The institute will take off this year, he added.
Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, who was at the event commended the NUC for developing a new curriculum for Nigerian Universities, saying it was helpful due to the unemployment rate of graduates in the country.
He said:
“We always complain about unemployment, I agree that there is unemployment but the percentage is not as we think. The significant challenge we have in Nigeria is the problem of unemployability, this is the major problem particularly when it comes to sciences, engineering, and technology.
We need to provide the relevant skills so that they will be able to confront any challenge and can be able to apply for any job globally.”
