The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has advised the Nigerian government to tailor the country’s academic curriculum to suit its needs.
The UN agency gave the advice stated this at a capacity-building workshop for officials of the Ministry of Education, in Abuja.
UNESCO’s Director for the International Bureau of Education, IBE, Mr. Ydo Yao, warned that unemployment persists because many Nigerians and Africans go to school and are qualified but have no jobs owing to the irrelevance of their training.
“Whereas we have some areas that are not exploited at all, with big potential for job creation, we are continuing to teach people, and learners on areas that used to be very relevant in the past. Today they are no longer relevant but we are still continuing the same things for 40 years. So how are we rethinking our education to make sure what we are offering is really what is needed?
“These are questions that we need to ask and all these have to be part of a process of reforms that can be undertaken by people who are trained and who have the skills to do it.
While explaining that the education sector can only be transformed if its curriculum is transformed, Yao added that curriculum is for education, what a constitution is for a democracy and that means it’s at the heart of education.
“So, when you talk about education, you are talking about content, programmes and learning. So, if you want to transform education, and you don’t transform what is at the core of it, which is the learning, the content and the programmes, your transformation has no meaning,” he said.