NAN – President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed optimism that Nigerian universities will rank among the best in the world in the next four years, as a result of the ongoing transformation of the education system.
Jonathan, who featured in the Presidential Debate organised by the Nigeria Elections Debate Group (NEDG) on Sunday in Abuja, said that Nigerian universities had been equipped to compete with their foreign counterparts.
Jonathan said that education was a responsibility of both states and the federal governments, adding that the present administration gives support to the states through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).
“We all feel bad that no Nigerian university was ranked but we are working seriously to change the trend. We have equipped most of our universities through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). We are talking about infrastructure that has failed over the years but with the way we are going, in the next four years our universities will compete with other universities across the world,” he said.
Also speaking, Godson Okoye, the presidential candidate of United Democratic Party, decried the situation where people who had benefited from free education turned education to business.
“We must re-engineer education right from nursery schools; teachers training colleges must be revisited,’’ he said.
Oluremi Sonaiya, the presidential candidate of KOWA Party, said the whole focus should not be on formal education but a broad-based education.
“Ignorance is one of the ills; KOWA will address formal and informal education; curriculum should be reviewed,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that five political parties- PDP, NCP, UPP, KOWA and UDP participated in the second session of the debate.
