Nigeria has been a haven of contestations on funding, access and quality of education at all levels for quite sometimes now. If the past is anything to go by, conferences of the type in view have turned out to be the source of turning point perspectives, models and practices. That is the conference which, for three days in the week ahead, would enable top public officials, educational administrators, academics, paper presenters, critics and students of education to add their own voices to repositioning of education in Nigeria as they engage the topic, “Repositioning Nigerian Educational System for National Consciousness, Unity and Socio-Economic Development” at the first National Conference of the College of Education at Veritas University, Abuja. The university operates the collegiate structure.
Prof Michael Adikwu, VC, Uniabuja and Keynote speaker at the conference
A book on the topic by a former Minister for Education and a former Executive Secretary of the NUC
Repositioning the Nigerian educational system has remained a key subject in Nigerian public debate. The subject of different forms of engagement, from theses to books to policy frameworks, repositioning of the educational system has been in the news recently. In the past two weeks, the president, his two ministers of Education and the regulatory agency for the universities, the National Universities Commission, (NUC) have all made their voices heard.
Among the voices to expected to be heard at the impending conference would be those of Professor Michael Adikwu, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja who would serve as the Keynote speaker; Prof Joseph Mamman and Prof Peter Tanko, all of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Professor Ben Akpan, the Executive Director of the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria. They would be joining the Chief Host and Host of the conference, Professors Mike Kwanashie and Ben Uzoechi, the VC and Dean of the College of Education respectively.
Three key sub-themes academics would be speaking to are Education for National Consciousness; Education for Unity and Education for Socio-economic Development. The conference which breaks into parallel sessions for paper presentation after the opening ceremony will also be featuring cultural display as well as exhibitions. Proceedings of the conference is expected to be published shortly according to the organisers.
