- The President-General of the Unity Schools Old Students Association, Mr Lawrence Wilbert, has urged the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to use his second term in office to improve the education sector.
The President-General of the Unity Schools Old Students Association, Mr Lawrence Wilbert, has urged the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to use his second term in office to improve the education sector.
Wilbert, who made the call in an interview with our correspondent on Wednesday, also reiterated the need for the alumni of unity schools to contribute to the development of their alma mater.
He said, “He (the minister) has been the minister for the past four years; he knows the terrain very well. Now, this is the time to take the education sector more seriously towards building or rebuilding Nigeria to be what it should be.
“There are loads of papers, documents that have been put together by the Federal Ministry of Education, taking inputs from various stakeholders. Those papers need to be implemented. Unity schools specifically can be used as a reference point for all other secondary schools. A lot more emphasis needs to be put on infrastructure, teachers’ training, and extra-curricular activities in secondary education.”
On the state of unity schools, he said, “My assessment broadly on the general state of the unity schools, Federal Government Colleges across the nation is not good. The quality of teaching across boards is average; there are not enough number of qualified teachers in the key subject areas, and the state of the infrastructure in the schools is poor. The good infrastructure for the schools in the past is all dilapidated due to poor maintenance culture.”
He noted that despite the Federal Government’s efforts at rebuilding infrastructure in the schools, a lot still needed to be done to bring the schools back to their former state.
“Of course, the Federal Government is budgeting and allocating funds towards rebuilding all these schools, but again, we need to look at whether that is being done and done properly. Again, the re-introduction of extra-curricular activities in the schools where they have been stopped should be encouraged,” Wilbert said.
The USOSA President-General said the role of alumni all over the world was to give back to their schools, saying the association was not meant for rich people alone.”
He added, “As alumni, we are stakeholders in these schools. Although, we are not recognised as co-owners of the schools, however, our passion for what we were taught to be and our passion for what has made us who we are today means that we cannot exist without referring to the schools. So we need to give back.
“My alumni coalition has done what we call ‘give back projects’, we have engaged in teachers training and empowerment. In some schools, we have built classrooms and dormitories.
“We have also been involved in improving the condition of sick bays, the supply of pharmaceutical products, among others. Together, we can use the idea behind the establishment of unity schools and federal government colleges to strengthen the unity of Nigeria and produce leaders that should lead the country.”
He added that the role of public-private-partnership was needed in improving the education sector, saying the government alone could not fund the education sector.
