Moghalu urges more investment in education sector

Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, the presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), has called for a political will for more investment in the nation’s education sector.

Moghalu, who is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and former UN officer, made the call at a town hall meeting tagged “the Candidates’’ aired by the NTA on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said that the major problems with the education sector were lack of political will to invest in the sector.

“We need to invest much more in education. The second thing is that we need the autonomy of the universities. Universities need to be free. Government in most advanced country do not control universities,’’ he said.

The candidate said that his investment would include teachers training, saying teachers in the primary and secondary schools had not risen to the global standard and that was affecting the quality of the students graduating the schools.

He promised that if elected his government would offer free education for students in primary and secondary schools, as well subsidise education in the public universities, while private universities bear their costs.

“We have to make sure that all the teachers in this country are re-certified to make sure that they are fit for the purpose. They have to be fit to teach our children in the 21st century.’’

Moghalu also said that his government would reform school curriculum to be more practical in terms of technology, vocational training and technology, rather than beeing theoretical.

“There are many sources of revenue in this country and there is also monumental amount of wastes that is going on in this country. If we stop security vote and put some of that money in our education we will do a better job of governance.

He said that within two years of his government, he would reduce recurrent expenditure to below 50 per cent and increase capital expenditure above 50 per cent.

Moghalu also added that his government would reform the civil service making civil servants to be productive.

“There is need to rationalise the civil service to make it productive, and people who are redundant can be moved to other areas where they would be useful.

“I also intend as president to recruit 1.5 million new policemen for the Nigerian Police and train and equipment them.’’

He added that Nigeria must invest in securing the country.

Moghalu who pledged to give attention to the diversification of the economy, also said that the country’s economy must move from politics of oil rent to innovation and manufacturing economy.

He said that the problem of diversifying the country’s economy was that political leaders had been paying lip service to the issue.

He said that there was no way the country’s economy could be diversified without restructuring and ensuring resource control.

Moghalu also stressed the need for Nigeria to become a true federation, where states of the regions would control their resources and pay rolyalty to the Federal Government.

He added that he believed in resource control and two tiers of government, namely including federal and the sub-national government.

Moghalu said that when he “become the president’’ he would interact with the National Assembly and present executive bill to push for restructuring.