ES tasks Education Experts to Address Nigeria's Needs

The Executive Secretary, NUC Professor Julius A. Okojie

 The Executive Secretary, National Univertsities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius A. Okojie, OON, has tasked education experts to creatively appraise what innovations and inputs could be added to sub-disciplines in the Faculty of Education in order to develop programmes that would address the nation's needs. Presenting a keynote paper titled, Consolidating Education Programmes in Nigerian Universities for National Development at the 5 Faculty of Education Conference of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) with the theme, Knowledge Integration for National Integration, recently, Professor Okojie said that each programme and a group of programmes in the discipline could certainly achieve a lot together. He canvassed for the special consideration of some innovative academic programmes with a view to discovering their potentials in contributing to the national development agenda. He classified these programmes into two major categories namely- Integrated Subject Group and Specialist Education Area. The Executive Secretary, who was represented by NUC Visiting Professor Akaneren Essien, identified the Integrated Subject Group to include Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Science Education, Entrepreneurial Education, Education Technology and Language Arts Education; while the Specialist Education Area comprised, Early Childhood Education, Basic Education, Higher Education, Special Needs Education, Education Administration and Guidance and Counselling). The NUC Scribe observed that the contribution of higher education to national development was enormous, with the sub-sector producing large number of skills and competencies that are essential to meeting the country's needs. He, however, noted that one major challenge was how to cope with the overwhelming number of unemployed graduates of the tertiary institutions, which informed the call to embrace entrepreneurship for job- creation. Professor Okojie charged universities to sustain their roles as knowledge incubation centres and called on senior academics to properly mentor their younger colleagues in the system. He said that the vast array of intellectual resources at their disposal were necessary tools for the advancement of the academic community. In the paper, the Executive Secretary advocated for the adoption of what he called 'Knowledge Integration Modalities', describing it as the tool needed, with careful planning, to advance the academic platform. He submitted that, with the staff strength, facilities and resources at their disposal, it was time for the various education departments and individuals to map out workable strategies for knowledge integration for national development, using the measurable inputs from the academic programmes mounted in the departments. Professor Okojie also stressed the need for the faculty to properly train and equip the students to be useful and competent on graduation. To this end, he advised that every step should be taken to properly equip the laboratories, studios, workshops and lecture rooms. He further said that each university should establish a Quality Assurance Unit to track the performance of Departments in meeting the minimum requirements for teaching and learning specified in the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS). The Executive Secretary reminded the universities that the essence of the programme accreditation exercise conducted by the Commission was to regulate the standards required to run each of the programmes approved by the NUC. He added that the quality of programmes of UNICAL, both at

L-R: The Guest Lecturer, Professor Daniel Denga; Vice-Chancellor of UNICAL, Professor James Ekpoke; Professor Essien and Dean of Faculty of Education, Professor Florence Banku Obi

the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, could be affected if urgent steps were not taken to remedy the identified deficiencies to put the programmes on a sound footing. He therefore called on the University Management to allocate adequate funds and to provide facilities for the Faculty of Education as well as to ensure the greater participation of the staff and students in future accreditation exercises. Earlier, in his remarks, the ViceChancellor, Professor James Epoke congratulated the Dean for the efforts at repositioning the Faculty and for creating opportunities for academics to brainstorm on a carefully selected theme that had national and global interest. He also commended the faculty for pioneering the intellectual culture , of monthly seminars, workshops and conferences, which was reflective of an academic environment. He tasked the faculty to continue to mentor young academics and applauded it for the production of a faculty journal and the efforts at its indexing by the African Journal Online. Welcoming guests, the Dean, Professor Florence Banku Obi stated that the faculty was poised to reposition, in line with the University's Vision Statement as well as the faculty's Vision of preparing globally competitive teachers. She recalled that with the reawakening of the faculty when she became the Dean, in 2012, through monthly seminars and workshops, that many of its academic staff were now better prepared for academic challenges than before. She advised the younger academics to take advantage of the conference to develop papers that, when peer reviewed, could be published in the Faculty Journal - Education for Today that would soon become visible at the Google scholar's platform for wider readership. The Lead Paper “Knowledge Integration as a Catalyst for National Development,” was presented by an education expert of the University, Professor D.I. Denga. At the end, the Conference recommended among other things that: There should be a degree programme in Knowledge Integration and that the National Universities Commission ( N U C) should encourage universities to mount this programme; Institutions of Higher Learning must recognise that knowledge integration will help the country to key into knowledge economy which drives global ·economy today; and Entrepreneurship education should be integrated into the curricular of all levels of education with emphasis on basic and secondary education.