President Jonathan’s Statement on Education Via His Facebook Page
As 2013 ASUU Strike continues, President Goodluck Jonathan took to Facebook to tell us about the improvements he has seen in the Education Sector since his administration took steps to address the general decay in education. He attributed the improvements he perceived to those achieved by students in the 2013 NECO results.
Here is President Jonathan’s message:
Today, I had the honour of ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange after I had heralded to global captains of industry Nigeria’s efforts in recent times that has made our nation a prime destination for foreign investment and one that ensures some of the highest Return on Investments (RoI) in the world. This is just the beginning of greater things to come for our country and our continent. The foundation of planning which we laid at the inception of our administration is being strengthened for greater service delivery for our people. My attention has just been drawn to some modest but positive steps in the education sector. In 2010, the pass rates for our National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examinations was 15.84%. To address the abysmal failure and general decay in education we convened an emergency education summit in 2010 to deliberate on why we had fallen so far back and how best can we move up? We took the report from that conference and began implementing some of the recommendations. The education sector had the highest sectoral allocation in the budget the following year and has remained among the topmost in allocation since then. On Friday the 20th of September 2013, the results of our efforts began to manifest.
This year, 69.57% of Nigerian students passed the 2013 Senior School Certificate Examinations. We cannot relent. While we continue to negotiate with ASUU so that never again will strikes be an impediment to the realization of our children’s educational aspiration, it is important that we keep our eyes on the ball: a holistic turn around in our education. As we make progress in every sector of our economy: Transportation, Aviation, Agriculture, Power, Finance, Energy Security and all others it is not celebration time until all our citizens can feel the progress in our communities and our constituencies.
We must pay greater attention to education. As I said on this page on April 10, 2012 when I commissioned the first of 400 Almajirinci Model Schools in Gagi, Sokoto state “a nation does not become wealthy by what it has under the ground rather the wealth of nations are today measured by what is between the ears of her citizens”.
To the world I say, we have the most industrious humans on earth and we are ready for business. To fellow Nigerians, our collective work for change is not done. Lets us not be discouraged by the attempt to drag us into partisan politics when the urgent issue of the moment is governance. GEJ
What do you think about this statement made by the President? Let see your views!
GEJ is a man without honour and a president without shame. B4 his election as deputy governor of bayelsa he’s a lecturer(asuu member) he knows what dis ppl(asuu) is fighting is a just course. An igbo adage said A man whose his house is on fire doesn’t go about pursuing rat’this is what GEJ is doing. Likewise d one called ochendo (Abia State Governor) a civil servent prior his election,took mantle of leadership to oppress fellow comrades, canvassing to be paying minimum wage to Abians where he removed all d necessary allowance an officer should be earning, may God help us from sycophants Amen. D sayn ‘esprit de corps where is it?? Nigeria the only country where what is right n needful is only achieved through industrial action. Such a shame to d so called leaders. Solidarity