In this concluding part, Education Minister, Prof. Ruqquayatu Rufai admits the sanctity of the 6-3-3-4 system, pledges to implement various pending reports domiciled at the Federal Ministry of Education and clarifies some of the thorny issues in the Federal Government/Academic Staff Unions of Universities (ASUU) agreement, which are currently generating debate. The first part of the interview, conducted by ROTIMI LAWRENCE OYEKANMI at the 36 session of the General Conference of UNESCO held in Paris, France recently, was published last Thursday. Excerpts:ON how Federal Government intends to tackle challenges in the education sectorFrom 2012, we are going to start with three colleges. We will select one technical college, one girls' unity college and one boys' unity college. We will take three per zone, 18 per annum and see how we can enhance them. Of course, we are going to discuss on the issue of their management, so that we can bring in the old students who we appreciate, in terms of their being active in giving back to their own individual colleges. We want to now involve them by the time we start the actual restructuring of these unity colleges. But that would happen in the next 2012 budget, so that is just one aspect. But the implementation of the entire report would lead to solving so many issues that Nigerians are looking forward to.At the same time, we at the Federal Ministry of Education are going to ensure that whenever we have Visitation Panel reports, even those from the universities, very soon, we are going to give directive for their implementation. Most of what you find is that, we in Nigeria are very much interested in submitting reports, but very soon, we are going to give directives for the universities and their individual councils to go ahead with their implementation. That is coming in the next few weeks. At the Ministry, we are look at the issue of implementation, the issue of quality and that quality will now cut across right, beginning from the early childhood.One of the major key recommendations, for which we also have approval, is to extend education assistance, not actually tampering with the 6-3-3-4 system, because we realized that there is nothing wrong with the structure, but with the implementation. Henceforth, instead of our younger ones starting their studies at age six, that is from primary one, we have now agreed that they should start from age five, beginning from the early childhood class.Of course, people may not see the reason why we are doing this, but we know. The elite are having their children attend the nursery school before going to the primary school. But we are concerned more not only with the elite, because we know they can afford it, but with the entire Nigerians who cannot afford it. So, every public school should now start from the early childhood class. At age five, a child can now go to school and after that one year of early childhood, he or she can now start the regular 6-3-3-4 system. So, the system would now be 1-6-3-3-4, to give room for the early childhood class.All these are issues that I know with time, Nigerians would come to appreciate. But I am aware that most people are eager to see results but like I always say, you cannot see results in education today. Mr. President came barely a year and half ago, so you cannot expect him to have the magic wand that would turn Nigeria's education around in a short time.How much money do you really have to do all these things you have enumerated' What's the Education sector the budget like'No ministry has enough money to do everything because of the competing demands. Every ministry is important and every ministry has so many things to do.If you look at the entire sector and you look at the projects that we have, even if you close down all the other sectors and you say, let us for this year put everything in education, you still cannot see the result tomorrow. It has to really take some time.Nigeria is doing its best in terms of funding of education, particularly if we look at the tertiary education. The best we have is the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, that we have based on the agitation of ASUU some years back. And if you can look at all the federal and state universities, particularly the other polytechnic and colleges of education, it would be very difficult for you to walk into a federal institution without seeing the landmark of the tertiary education trust fund.If you look at the budget, the budget really cannot accommodate everything. That is why we are taking things in batches. We have problems, but we don't have all the money, so we have to be strategic.For example, look at the Universal Basic Education matching grants. If we have one billion for a state, that state has to give its own counterpart fund, which will make it two billion to develop its basic education sector. So, if you look at the money we have in UBEC (Universal Basic Education Commission), and we have over N30 billion as at now, and we are expecting the states to access that through their own counterpart funding. If the states can also access what they have with the TETFUND, which does not even require their counterpart funding, we may end up having over N100 billion for the entire basic and secondary education sub sectors.On ASUUI cannot say I'll put a stop to the strikes. I can't promise anybody anything. But what I will say is that, we'll do our best in terms of going by the agreement we signed. We may not be the person that signed that agreement, but government is government, so, whatever had been agreed to by the previous government is binding on the current government.But we are looking at the agreement and we have agreed with them that after November 22nd (last Tuesday), we are going to review what we have done within the last two months. Some of the major issues now include the retirement age in terms of Professorial cadre, (which ASUU wants increased to 70 years), Earn Allowances, Pension and so on. Some of these issues were things that should have been resolved within the University atmosphere. But now, we are meeting with the Vice Chancellors, to see how we can accommodate some of these issues. We are working on the retirement age issue. The matter has gone to the National Assembly and I am sure our legislators are ready and willing to cooperate.Of course, the Earn Allowances are also major issues. But when we discussed with ASUU on it, it was only recently that we were able to get the exact or near exact amount of what is required by each University. So, even if government was willing and has the money, it wouldn't know what amount to give. But we have now realized it is going to cost a lot of money. When I asked those that signed the agreement, I was told that it will come from Internally Generated Revenue of the individual Universities. And that is part of why we are having this problem. If the money will come from IGR, that means the federal government has little to do with it. Unfortunately, no University can afford it, and of course, there are other allowances.Now, we are trying to determine what the individual Universities can pay and then approach the federal government for the balance. But this will take time. We don't want strike. I am also part of them (ASUU), so I cannot block is due to them.
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