Obi Urges FG to Prioritize Education

Make education a priority, Obi advises FG

The newly revealed JAMB UTME 2024 results, according to Peter Obi, the Labour Party's 2023 presidential contender, highlight the critical attention the government has to provide the education sector.

He asserted that by making significant investments in education, improving programs for teacher preparation, and enacting inclusive laws, Nigeria must prioritize education as a major engine of development.

Obi cited the results breakdown, stating that it demonstrated a notable disregard for the education sector as a vital driver of national growth, with 76% of candidates scoring below 200 (below 50%) and 0.5% of applicants supposedly scoring 300 (75%) and above.

 He continued by saying that as a result of the UTME's alleged widespread poor performance, Nigeria, a country with a population of over 200 million, can only claim to have roughly 2 million full-time students enrolled in various universities, while Iran, a country with a population of over 89 million, boasts of having over 8.2 million students enrolled in Islamic Azad University alone, and Bangladesh, a country with a population of roughly 173 million, boasts of having over 2 million enrolled undergraduate students at the National University of Bangladesh.

In response to the results being made public on his X handle, Obi stated: “The recent revelation regarding the JAMB UTME 2024 results and percentages has sparked deep concern about the state of education in our country. These statistics paint a troubling picture that demands urgent national attention and discussion.

“The distribution of scores is alarming, with only 0.5% of candidates reportedly scoring 300 (75%) and above, while a staggering 76% scored below 200 (below 50%). This highlights a systemic issue within our education sector indicating a significant lack of attention to this very critical contributor to national development. This brings to limelight an obvious gap in the quality of education provided nationwide. Education remains a critical determinant of a nation's progress on the Human Development Index (HDI).”

“Unfortunately, Nigeria has continued to lag behind in education, reflected by its low HDI ranking of 164 out of the 191 countries measured. This places Nigeria far below other comparable nations like Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines which are within medium and high HDI. Though we claim as a nation that our literacy rate is above 50 percent, which is far below the global average of about 80% and continues to lag behind other comparable countries like Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines with literacy rates of above 70%. This again, underscores the systemic challenge in access to quality education, particularly in rural areas.

“One of the consequences of the reported general poor performance in UTME is that with our population of over 200 million, Nigeria can only boast of about 2 million full-time students in different universities, while Iran with a population of over 89 million has over 8.2 million students in one University alone, Islamic Azad University, Bangladesh with a population of about 173 million boasts of over 2 million enrolled undergraduates in the National University of Bangladesh.”

He stated that this demonstrated how urgently our educational system needs to pay attention.

He stated that while solving this difficulty, “Nigeria must prioritise education as a key driver of development by aggressively investing in education, enhancing teacher training programs, and implementing inclusive policies.”