The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday directed the Ministry of Education to organise a Ministerial Retreat aimed at addressing the falling standard of education in the country.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, confirmed this development when he briefed State House correspondents after the FEC meeting, presided over by Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Adamu stated that all the cabinet members agreed that urgent measures should be taken to tackle the deterioration in the standard of education at all levels of the country’s education system.
He said: “Today at the (Federal Executive Council) FEC we discussed many issues.
“The most important thing is that of education.
“All members of FEC agreed that the standard and situation of education is so serious that we need a Ministerial Retreat to look at all the issues.
“There are so many issues in education, all of them are crying for solutions.
“So, there will be a ministerial retreat in the next two weeks and then from there we will take-off.
“Initially, we have prepared a blue print but FEC though the issue is beyond that because there are crises in all the areas of education; in out-of-school children; in technical vocational education and training; in ICT; in all areas you can think of.
“So, ministers are going to start talking among themselves.”
The minister also described as unfair the media report on the purported removal of Christian Religious Knowledge from the nation’s schools’ curriculum.
According to Adamu, when he assumed office as minister of education he made the study of CRK compulsory for Christian students, while the Islamic Studies (IRK) was also made compulsory for all Muslim students.
He, therefore, lamented that the journalists were falsely accusing the ministry for the opposite of what it had done.
Adamu explained: “You Journalists, especially those who are in the social media, I think you are not helping this nation by just bending things that are absolutely false.
“There is no truth in it at all. So it is just the walk of somebody’s imagination, probably somebody who wishes to raise the tension in the country.
“After the Biafra issue and then the quit order given by some young people in the north it’s just follow suit that somebody is trying to fan the embers of religious tension.
“There is no truth whatsoever I repeat.”
The Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council had also denied the news making the rounds in the educational sector that CRK had been removed from schools’ curriculum.
NERDC, in a statement, on June 13, said that CRK was never removed from the curriculum, adding that the council never introduced the Islamic Arabic Studies/French combination, as being rumoured in some quarters.