Former President Goodluck Jonathan has advised African
Governments and the private sector to invest more in education to bring about
the required economic advancement and re-positioning the continent to become
more competitive in the age of technological revolution.
The Ex-President also enjoined all stakeholders to show
enough commitment and support to make education attractive and ensure that
Africa’s best brains are retained in the sector as teachers, in order to
produce globally competitive students. A statement by Mr. Ikechukwu Eze, the
former President’s media adviser said that Jonathan spoke on Wednesday at
the 2017 Roundtable of the African Presidential Leadership Centre in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
The programme with
the theme ‘Addressing Africa’s Educational Challenges in the 21st Century
brought together seven former African Presidents and many other business and
political leaders in the continent. Besides
Jonathan, other former leaders included former Ghanaian President John Dramani
Mahama, former Zambian President Rupiah Banda, former President of Mauritius
Karl Offman, former Prime Minister of Zanzibar Amani Abeid Karume, as well as
former Presidents of Tanzania Jakaya Kikwete and Frederick Sumaye.
Jonathan who
expressed hope in African youths and their potential to take Africa to the next
level also advised that special attention should be
placed on Sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics, stressing that
“Africa does not only need to produce world class scientists and engineers, but
also needs to retain them on the continent.” He further made a case for special
Incentives to stimulate interest in the education sector, saying: “If Africa
must progress, a reasonable percentage of our best brains must go into
education. If you look at the percentage of quality man-power that go into
education in some countries you will realise that we still have a long way to
go, because quality education drives development. For instance, research has
shown that in countries with very good education profiles like Sweden, six out
of the best ten brains will be retained to teach others while in a place like
the United States about three out of their ten best brains will go into
teaching.
“But in Africa none
out of its ten best graduates will remain in teaching. What this
tells me is that Africa needs to realise that incentivising the education
sector is key to its advancement.” he said
Speaking on the need to segment education, he said “The mainstream
education is there and we must continue to encourage it. But beside that, we
should be able deal with the question of how to nurture the brains that will
technologically revolutionise Africa. We must retool our education curricula in
line with the technological requirements of the 21st Century. We must produce
technically competent people.
“My thinking is
that if we must change Africa, if we must seek to rival the rest of the world
to get to the stage where we would be able to deploy artificial intelligence to
solve our problems, we must specially educate some categories of people. “The
truth is that God did not bless all of us equally with the same quality of
brains. The distribution of the human brain is not uniform. In that case, for
us to develop as nations and as a continent, we must devise ways of sorting out
our best brains and encouraging them to fully develop themselves. The efforts
and contributions of those few ones are enough to change society. Such brains
can catapult Africa into the technological revolution age.”
He noted that in the
last 25 years, the Information technology revolution has grown in geometrical
progression while African education is being left behind, because it has failed
to keep the pace. “For us to compete
with the rest of the world, Africa requires a strategic plan on how to fill
existing gaps. We have to begin to dream that we will catch up with the rest of
the progressive world on technological advancement. It is a good thing that
some countries are consciously sending bright students abroad to institutions
with proven academic record to acquire the required skills.
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