CPE moved a notch higher to solidify its movement as a front runner for proper qualitative education in Nigeria. The CPE “Save Education in Nigeria ” campaign which was kick-started in 2019 ,recorded several notable achievements ,some of which are establishment of CPE state chapters in over 17 states in Nigeria, governmental recognition of CPE programmes and activities as one of the leading educational juncture for addressing low-quality education in low-cost areas of the country, provision of aids to displaced ,war torn areas of the country as well as teacher training programmes for better productive learning in the educational sector.
The Save Education in Nigeria campaign which has made a lot of waves in the past few months certainly was able to get its message across to educational stakeholders and shareholders in persons of teachers, school owners, parents and government officials to rebuild and reassess the current state of the educational framework of Nigeria.
The Save Education Dialogue held at the Vantage Point, Lagos State on the 26th of February 2020 was the springboard for rounding up a successful and effective intervention effort by CPE to garner support and create awareness for the educational structure of Nigeria to be realigned and restructured for better productivity and quality of education in the country.
The event saw a lot of top educational influencers and stakeholders present at the event to lend their support in cash and in kind to propel the resolutions of the CPE 4-week campaign to the doorsteps of the government representatives in the House of Assembly, House of Representatives and other tiers of government.
Sarah Sosan, former Deputy Governor of Lagos, aggressively canvassed and supported that the Nigerian educational system was truly lethargic and not functioning holistically to embrace changing educational reading patterns and learning trends all over the world, as such there is a learning gap that needs to be filled for Nigeria to get education right again.
It became clear that getting education right, starts with the teaching workforce in Nigeria, Rotimi Eyitayo stressed that Nigeria’s education is in dire need of identity, stating that the educational system in Nigeria a total overhaul which would include the formation of a national educational identity that give education in Nigeria a national, universal identity which would help to reposition education in Nigeria for greatness.
There are several factors that also could make or mar the educational framework in Nigeria, Praise Fowowe, one of the guest speaker at the event spoke about “How do we encourage parents to work hand in hand with schools to nurture and educate the Nigerian child” Mr.Fowewe stressed the need to bring back age-old training patterns of “community parenting” which was a common societal parenting method that has gradually fizzed out over the years.
He said that training a perfect child is the duty of the mother, father, teacher and community at large, he emphasized that a wrong community with wrong values has a way of shaping and orienting a child in a bad way, he furthered on by saying that a good child is not only a reflection of the parent as well as the immediate community such child is raised in.
This was continually buttressed by other guest speakers like Dr.Ifueko Thomas , who maintained that for the educational framework to work ,the curriculum must be looked into because for Nigeria to work optimally. Dr. Ifueko opined that the Nigerian curriculum has held back the growth of the educational and as such, it must be readjusted to effectively represent the Nigerian society.
She also stressed that education is dynamic and evolving in the 24th Century and Nigeria needs to be a part of it by employing more of emotional intelligence in educational institutions so as to know when to teach, how to teach, where to teach as well as what to teach, as such Dr. Ifueko Thomas interacted with the school students present to know their views of the educational system in their schools and how they would have loved to learn.
Johnson Abbaly also casted off the demons of “who school epp” by advising the government to involve the youths more by investing more in entrepreneurship and innovative programmes that encourages and brings out the ingenuity in the Nigerian youth so as to make them instrumental in the economic rise of Nigeria from the squalor national economic poverty.
Truly education is the future for Nigeria and its citizens to become a force to reckon with,this has always been the standpoint of CPE and it very first national advocacy campaign has set it marks in the sands of time of Nigeria, with a view to pressing on for more achievement in the educational sector of Nigeria.