FUK Faculty holds 2nd National Conference to seek solutions to societal challenges
Faculty of Education, Federal University of Kashere (FUK), Gombe State, on Tuesday held its 2nd Annual National Conference of Faculty of Education.
The theme of the conference is “Rethinking the Nigeria’s Education Policy and Implementation in curbing Societal Problems.”
During the event, stakeholders in the tertiary education sector called for the implementation of the newly-developed curriculum for Nigerian universities.
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Our Correspondent reports that the Federal Government, through the National Universities Commission, had on Dec 5 released the newly-developed curriculum for Nigerian universities.
The stakeholders made their submissions in separate interviews with newsmen on the sideline of the event.
Prof Umar Pate, the Vice Chancellor of FUK said that the NUC recently embedded 17 new curricula for programmes in all Nigerian universities which focus on content that institutions deliver to their students.
“The 17 curricula contain specific aspects in almost every department or area taught in our university.
“We are trying to see how we could upgrade the quality of teaching, the quality of content so that teaching can become functional, applied and totally relevant to the issues of the day based on the evolving situations.”
According to him, implementation of the newly-developed curricula will help produce better graduates that would be capable of solving societal challenges and “the government need to provide them with the environment conducive for them to strive too.”
Speaking on the conference, Pate said it was apt as it is aimed at establishing a linkage between educational policy and societal ills.
“We are trying to also examine how educational policy can help the society to address some of these challenges like unemployment, ethno-religious conflicts, drug and crimes, terrorism.”
On his part, Prof Ibrahim Bashir, member of the governing council of FUK said one of the major issues affecting the country and not just the education sector was that of policy implementation.
Bashir said Nigeria’s curricula in the tertiary institutions needed to be re-designed to solve contemporary challenges in the country so that graduates come out of these institutions with solutions-oriented approach to living.
According to him, if every discipline taught in the country is applied, it will help to address some of the challenges being faced by Nigerians.
“We need functional education that can be applied to solve human problems.
“It is important for us to produce the type of Nigerians that we need and those type of Nigerians those that can take this country several steps higher than we are today.”
Bashir said the newly-developed curricula should be implemented by concerned stakeholders through proper monitoring towards achieving the essence for which it was developed.
On his part, Prof Abdulhamid Auwal, Dean, faculty of education, FUK said curriculum implementation in other parts of the world differed slightly from that of Nigeria and “that could be the reason why we didn’t get it right.”
“As long as Nigeria does not adjust to the implementation as it is done elsewhere, we may not get it right,” he said.
Auwal said now that the curriculum had been modified, the next phase for stakeholders was to ensure strict implementation.
“We the academic staff unions with the tertiary institutions will put heads together to see that the implementation becomes much more proper so that it will close the existing gap.”
Presenting the keynote address, Arc Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) who was represented by Suleiman Zangina, the Chief Planning Officer, Department of Research and Development, TETFUND Directorate Headquarters highlighted the need for tertiary institutions to embark on research aimed at providing solutions to societal problems.
Echono said TETFUND through its various interventions had strengthened content-based interventions to promote impactful innovative research for development as a solution to societal problems.
He said the agency had also concluded plan to provide central multipurpose laboratories in selected beneficiary institutions.
According to him, this is to promote enabling environment to enhance impactful innovative research outputs and accelerate competitiveness of the institutions for national development.
