Education Is Useless When It Is Not In The Right Direction

The minister of labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has said education that is not directed towards job creation is useless. He said school curriculum must change to include new and emerging skills.

According to the minister, there is need for schools to revise their current curriculum to reflect modern challenges and development. He said this in Abuja while addressing a breakfast session of the ongoing National Economic Summit.

Ngige said: “With a working population of over 80 million, the majority of who are; unemployed, we have to do something radical, the narrative must change. School curriculum must change to include new and emerging skills.

Education is power but it is useless when it is not in the right direction. We, therefore, must collaborate to solve this problem.” Noting that the current efforts might not be sufficient to create jobs needed to gainfully engage over 80 million people, the minister stated that there was need for a paradigm shift in approach to job creation.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s minister of state for Africa, Harriett Baldwin; said the UK government announced a new £70-million programme to create 100,000 jobs in Nigeria.

She said this during a business event as part of the activities; for Prime Minister Theresa May’s visit to Nigeria on Wednesday, August 29.

Baldwin, who led a business delegation to the event, said that the programme would raise the income of three million people from the poorest parts of Nigeria. She said: “We are here today to talk about technology links between the UK Fintech (financial technology) sector and the Nigerian Fintech sector and will bring inward investment in terms of this important sector of technology.”

In an earlier report the minister of labour and productivity, Chris Ngige, insisted that there was; no serious opposition to President Buhari’s intention to seek a second term in 2019, due to what he described as the excellent performance of the current administration in office in the past three years.

Ngige, who spoke in Onitsha, stated that the president’s chances were; boosted by the fact that the All Progressives Congress (APC); still commands majority of support in the country.