A former Governor of Anambra State and Presidential candidate of the Labour Party during the 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria, Peter Obi has claimed that the crisis engulfing the country’s education sector is fueled by misplaced priorities of people occupying leadership positions in the country.
He gave this warning in a post made on his Facebook account on Thursday where he claimed that the growth of out of school children and poor academic performance by students are evidence of the ongoing crisis in the sector.
It read “The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) stated recently that Nigeria’s education sector is facing a crisis of great magnitude, with over 20 million children out of school, and many more unable to read or write. They emphasised that children who are enrolled in school are not learning.
“These scary statistics were also mirrored by WAEC, as they confirmed that the recently released WASSCE is the worst academic performance in five years, with only 38% of students passing.”
Peter Obi described the lack of meaningful investments into education by leaders which is influenced by misplaced priorities as a major factor worsening the situation in the country.
He said “In a time when education should be our most urgent national priority and most critical investment, we as leaders continue to spend trillions on infrastructures, most of which contribute little or nothing to the measurable development index and cannot be completed and renovations that are a misplaced priority, while the foundational sectors like education remain in crisis.”
Peter Obi called on stakeholders to change their focus and make urgent and meaningful investments towards ending the crisis that is crippling the education sector.
He said “Education is the most powerful investment we can make in the future of this nation. We must urgently redirect our focus towards building our national human capital by providing quality and functional schools and investing in access to learning for every Nigerian child.
“A nation that neglects its young people has no future. We must urgently redirect our priorities, and invest in quality education. Our children deserve classrooms, not abandoned projects.
“To build a stronger, safer, and more prosperous nation, we must invest in our children, because when we fail them, we have failed our nation. A New Nigeria is POssible.”
