The Chief Education Officer of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Saadhna Panday has said that Education has been the collateral damage of the Covid 19 pandemic and recovery will remain protracted with potential inter generational impacts if the government and stakeholders in the education sector do not confront the challenges with urgency.
Panday who made the indication at the transforming education summit in Abuja, noted that, the pandemic has worsen the fragility of country’s education system which was already struggling with poor access to quality learning adding that, frequent attacks on school has also resulted to prolonged school closures
Panday however said, the aim of the Summit is to mitigate the education impacts and build on the opportunities to expand access to quality learning and to secure the future of current and future generations.
Also speaking the, Executive Secretary of the Tertiary education Trust fund, Sonny Echono said their is need to harness all potential resources towards investing into education sector
“The type of curriculum that will now focus more on skills, entrepreneurship bevsue we want to enhance employability. As we have been preaching, we don’t want to produce graduates that are looking for government employment,” he said.
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 of growing the country will be incubated and released for various sector of our economy. According to him, this institute will take off this year.
The minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami also said, their is a need to transform the country education sector.
“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 the major problem particularly when it comes to sciences , engineering, technology.
“We need to provide the relevant skills so that they will be abale to confront any challnege and can be able to apply for any job globally,” he said.
Pantami further explained that soft skills are mostly sought after especially in big tech companies such as critical thinking, analytical thinking,, collaborative skills, project management, problem solving, presentation skills, among others.
“Today if you apply for a job in the global tech giant, they hardly ask you about the university you attended or class of degree but are interested in knowing your hard skills and soft skills this is what theybare interested in,” he stressed.
