The Presidential Candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Kingsley Moghalu has promised end the recurrence of strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), if elected president.
According to him, ASUU strikes would be a thing of the past if he is voted into power.
He was speaking at the Presidential Debate jointly organised by the Nigeria Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) over the weekend.
EduCeleb.com recalls that the university union teachers’ Union had been on strike since 4th November mainly on issues related to funding the Nigerian universities infrastructure and research through the revitalisation funds. Issues surrounding this remain unresolved even after seven meetings to reach a concensus failed between the union and the Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government.
Professor Moghalu stated how his administration plans to tackle the challenges facing the Nigerian education system.
According to him, “You can solve money as problems and it doesn’t solve the problem. 80% of the budget is on recurrent expenditure and that is what we are going to move away from.
“So, we will invest in teacher training. We will retrain and recertify Nigerian teachers at Primary and secondary levels. We will invest in curriculum reforms.
“60% to70% of the curriculum will have to move towards technology, vocational skills and entrepreneurship.
“Every young man or woman coming out of an educational system in Nigeria must be able because that is how the jobs of the future are created.
“We will invest in how our children learn so they don’t just cram and regurgitate for exams.
“Then, we will invest in educational infrastructure and finally, I will end ASUU strikes in Nigeria.”
Professor Kingsley Moghalu has also promised that during his administration, public schools will become standards for measuring the educational capability of a lot of private schools.
“The YPP had a very strong attachment for education and I happen to be a professor myself so I have very practical experience.”
He identified the lack of political will as part of the challenges associated with the education sector in Nigeria and said he government, when elected would do something to resolve that.
“The first thing our government will do is that our government we will bring to education the political will to make it a priority because the progress of Nigeria depends on the strength of our educational system.
“Today, education is about 7% of our budget. In my presidency, we will begin the first budget of 2020 with not less than 20% of it devoted to education,” Moghalu added.
EduCeleb.com reports that the NEDG/BON debate also had in attendance the Presidential Candidates of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Ms Oby Ezekwesili and that of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Mr Fela Durotoye. Both the President Candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Muhammadu Buhari were absent from the debate.
