In four years time, the dead-in-the-water education sector in Nigeria should be positively transformed in line with the agenda of this administration. Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai, says the ministry knows what the issues and challenges are, and they’ve already classified them into focal areas.

The focal areas listed by the minister include:

• access and equity,
• standard and quality assurance,
• strengthening institutional management of education,
• teacher education and development,
• technical and vocational education and training,
• funding, partnerships, resource mobilisation and utilisation.

The minister asked Nigerians to hold her to her words as represented by the Strategic Plan, which is that by 2015, there would be significant difference in the state of our educational institutions as well as product quality. “We must return our institutions to their years of glory when they produced individuals who are, today, directing affairs in diverse organisations globally,” the minister said.

Surprisingly, the minister said the four-year plan was already at the implementation stage even though it was only just being made public.

On his part, the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nysom Wike, said much work went into developing the plan to ensure a holistic approach to tackling all the issues involved.

He said the document “not only reflects the vision and mission of the Ministry of Education for the development of the sector, but also comprehensively reflects our goals, objectives and priorities, as well as the respective responsibilities of all stakeholders and what we need to do in our various capacities to achieve targeted results within the given timeline.”

How does the NYSC and its corpers sent out to educate people in the villages  fit into this plan?