Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Wahab Egbewole said a complete overhaul of the education system is imperative to repair the rot affecting the quality of education in Nigeria.
Egbewole who spoke on Thursday in a convocation lecture, titled “Learning is Schooling Plus” at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, declared that a good number of graduates are displaying certificates they either cannot defend or match with character and creativity.
He stressed the need to stop confusing teaching with learning, blaming years of wrong indoctrination that only schools can offer education, and that skills and knowledge acquisition are only reliable if it is done formally in a traditional school setting.
“The goal of education should be to generate compassionate and creative students who will contribute to the development and maintenance of a just society.
“Some of our educational institutions have produced graduates who compare favourably with their peers in other parts of the world and are making waves, but it is also true that they have produced graduates who have not measured up to standard,” he said.
Continuing, he stated: “We are familiar with the stories of graduates who allegedly are unable to write ordinary application letters for unemployment.
There are also instances where some are unable to identify the core issues in the courses they studied, talkless of explaining them.
There are also cases of graduates who are so educationally vapid, to the extent that they are adjudged not to be trainable, and therefore, not employable.”
Egbewole called for the reinvention of Nigeria’s school curriculum as part of the solutions to rejuvenating standards in the nation’s education system.
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