Following the recent outburst of the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai concerning the state of education in the North, this episode of Plus Politics takes it a step further asking if affirmative action has been given more credence than credibility.
It is no longer news that varying parts of the nation, especially the north have extremely reduced cut-offs when it comes to examinations across the country and according to the Kaduna State governor, this has led to decadence, millions of children out of school and poverty in the north.
Two experts Prof. Adebayo Kolawole, a lecturer from the Federal University of Agriculture and the CEO of Gidi Mobile, Tunji Adegbesan who likes to refer to himself as an Education Enthusiast both agreed that the quota system indeed may not be the problem but that the system has been abused in favour of the Quota System.
On how to address the issues, Dr. Tunji Adegbesan disclosed that a State of Emergency needs to be declared in Nigeria’s Education Sector. He gave examples of more developed nations who invest more in people and advised that the Nigerian Government follows suit. In his words – developed nations invest in people not infrastructure, those people go on to solve the problems.
While Prof. Kolawole agreed that not all universities are guilty of admitting subpar students, they both agreed that excellence should take precedence to affirmative action for us to witness any real change in Nigeria’s education sector.
