Address at Oyo Education Summit 2019 — Forming the next Generation of Leaders

Address at the Oyo State Education Summit held on July 25, 2019.

Protocols

I’d like to get started this morning by thanking everyone here. Your presence is important. Without you, this summit wouldn’t hold.

We’d like to thank our special guests who in spite of the short notice have honored our invitation to this summit. We are most grateful.

We’d also like to thank the ministry of Education whose support and understanding we have enjoyed. In the same vein, we appreciate all the schools represented here. We understand that you are in a very busy period at the moment. We thank you for taking time out to be here in-spite of the busyness of this time.

And of course, we are also very grateful to the Dominican Institute for partnering with us to host this summit. We are thankful for your generosity in making this hall available to us. We are thankful.

In October last year, UNICEF came out with a report that there are over 13million out of school children in Nigeria. Of this number, Oyo state account for over 400,000, making it the state with the highest number of out of school children in the entire South West.

With our increasing population, educational infrastructures that are already in limited supply, are coming under increasing pressure. The cumulative outcome will be more out of school children and a consistent decline in the quality of education.

In a comparative demographic studies, our population is the fastest growing among the top ten most populous nations of the world. It is conclusive that Nigeria will be among the top three most populous nations in the world by the year 2050, coming only behind China and India. At the continental level, Africa is projected to account for more than half of global population growth between 2015 and 2050.

It is however important for us to contextualize this population projections. According to the Bill and Melinda Gates GoalKeepers report of 2018, about 40% of the world’s poorest people by 2050 will be in just Nigeria and DR of Congo if the current status quo is maintained. The implication of having more poor people on our streets is more insecurity, more out of school children, more social vices, until the state descend into utter chaos.

This conclusion is corroborated by both qualitative social research and experts in the field. John Wilmoth, the Director of the Population Division in the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs recently said, “The concentration of population growth in the poorest countries presents its own set of challenges, making it more difficult to eradicate poverty and inequality, to combat hunger and malnutrition, and to expand educational enrolment and health systems, all of which are crucial to the success of the new sustainable development agenda”.

If we are objective enough, we would find little difficulty in admitting that these predictions are almost common place in our nation.

Fortunately for us, Nigeria has one of the most youthful population in the world. The cumulative average age of our entire population is 17.9 years. This present us with a unique opportunity. If we are able to recognize, that our most unique strength lie in the energy and creativity of our youthful population, we would find it easier to turn our mess into a miracle.

Unfortunately, we are not making the most of this opportunity at the moment. The vast majority of our young people are unemployed or underemployed and are therefore not productively engaged. The immediate consequence is that more young people are turning to one form of vices or another.

To begin to reverse this, our nation must prioritize investment in Human Capital Development. Last year, the World Bank released its first Human Capital Development Index. Nigeria came in at 152 out of the 155 countries analyzed.

This calls for urgent intervention. And this is why this summit is taking place today.

Access to qualitative education is a major pillar in human capital development. The earlier mentioned Goal Keepers report recognized that access to quality education, health care and nutrition are pivotal for human development.

To us, we consider education as a having a strategic capability of not only curing our large population of ignorance, but also a powerful means of addressing our leadership problems. When approached correctly, education can be a powerful tool for the making of individuals. It will not only equip individuals with knowledge, but more importantly, fashion their character development. This is why we have a collective responsibility to ensure that wholesome education is not the exclusive reserve of a few, but the legitimate entitlement of all persons.

We have converged this summit to move us closer to achieving a more qualitative educational system that will save our nation of a calamitous future. We are hopeful of evolving quality conclusions from the conversations we have today that will help move education forward in the state.

In the first part of this summit, we would build conversations aimed at x-raying our current educational policy with the view of proffering recommendations that could bridge perceived deficiencies. It is intended to be interactive as we are mindful that this summit is a meeting of stakeholders.

In the second part, we would explore practical approaches for discovering and developing leadership potentials of young people through our existing educational systems. We are deeply persuaded that our educational system can be the new factory where the leaders of tomorrow are made. Each one here, particularly the school heads, can in their own little way, make tangible contributions to moving our nation forward.

We are committed to working with the state ministry of education to address some of the issues that would be raised today. The outcome of this summit would be captured in a special report which we would summit back to state ministry of education for consideration and further action.

We are inspired by the words of the great Mahatma Gandhi where he said “A small body of determined spirits, fired up by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of History”.

We look forward to having quality conversations and we do hope that this summit would have been worth your time. We thank you for coming.

God bless you!