For close to an hour at the just concluded 36th Session of the General Conference of UNESCO held in Paris, France, Education Minister, Prof. Ruqquayattu Rufai unveiled the Federal Government's plan for the education sector over the next three years. She also told ROTIMI LAWRENCE OYEKANMI in this first part of an exclusive interview, that action, rather than words, would henceforth be the motto of the Federal Ministry of Education. Excerpts:SO far what has been your experience at this conference'My experience at this conference has been a very good one. More people are accommodating and supporting Nigeria. They are appreciative of what Nigeria is doing and of course, we are also very happy about what UNESCO is doing to support Nigeria. Even though we had a bomb blast, which would have been a setback for us, yet, UNESCO stood by us. You are aware of the bomb blast that happened at the UN (United Nations) office in Abuja. For us at the Federal Ministry of Education, we were saddened and we did not want this to affect our collaborating with UNESCO.We offered them (UNESCO) an accommodation within the NCCE (National Commission for Colleges of Education) premises, where we have new buildings that have not been occupied. They are going to occupy a whole floor and they are very happy about that. Since UNESCO has already concluded arrangements to upgrade the Abuja office to a multi-sectoral, regional center, I think it is very important that we have this support from them, despite our own challenges.So, the reason why we are happy for UNESCO and the participation of Nigeria in this general conference is that, apart from upgrading the Nigerian office to a multi-sectoral regional office for the West African sub-region, we also have the privilege to have had two Category 2 Centers to be established in Nigeria by UNESCO. We have the River Basin Category 2 Centre, which will be established in Kaduna, and we also have the Centre for Biotechnology that would be established at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. These two Centers are not only for us, but for other countries, and of course, it is a recognition to have two centers at the same time.You had a private session with the Director General of UNESCO, Mrs Irina Bokova. What formed the crux of the matter'I went to see the DG with the other members of the team. You know UNESCO encompasses Education, Culture, Science and Technology and we also have Information. I attended the session with the Minister of Culture, the Minister of Youth and the Vice chairperson of the Education Committee of the Federal House of Representatives.The Director General was so happy to see us. The major focus of our discussion had to do with basically five critical areas: The first was that, we discussed the issue of upgrading our Abuja centre and we appreciated UNESCO's support, despite the bomb blast. We also appreciated the two Category 2 Centers that they (UNESCO) have already concluded, even though other countries like Ghana were still not in line with UNESCO adopting or upgrading Nigerian office. Ghanaian officials were saying on the floor of the general assembly that Ghana would have been the best place for the multi-sectoral regional office. So we told the DG that we appreciated the transparent nature of the selection process.We also discussed Nigeria's position as one E9 countries here. We have been chairing the group for one and half years now, so next year, we are handing over the chairmanship to India and the focus is literacy. We are working towards literacy that is part of what we discussed.We also discussed the decisions arrived at by the E9 countries which met at this General Conference. I had to convey the message to her. For example, we (E9) agreed that, the next theme for the E9 countries' summit should be quality of education, since all the countries are facing challenges. What we have realized is that we are all facing similar challenges. For example ' access. Even though some of us are making progress on access, but majority of the E9 countries are still having challenges. However, the biggest challenge among the E9 countries is the issue of quality in education. So, you can see that it's not only in Nigeria that we are facing challenges.I also told the Director General about the other decision of the E9 countries on the need to adopt the smaller countries. The big countries all have challenges, but the smaller countries are interested in going along with us because they have seen that we are doing something that would also assist them. So they indicated interest to UNESCO and UNESCO has listed those countries.For example, we (Nigeria) agreed technically that we would work with all those that belong to the ECOWAS. We are not going to say that we know all because we have our own challenges, but at least, they are interested in knowing what we are doing.No doubt, you face enormous challenges at home across all the sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary. But you also have a mandate to deal with these challenges between now and the next general elections. How do you intend to go about it'It is very sad that at this critical period of our history, we are still facing the challenges that we have been facing years back. The issues that have to do with access, quality, funding, technical and vocational education, that would make our graduates employable, are issues we are still battling with. It is like we are going round one circle.But what Nigerians are interested in now is how are we are going to break this cycle; how are we going to make progress and this is exactly what we are planning to do. Of course, the government, with all my other colleagues agreed that Nigerians are very tired of planning. Of course, planning is very critical to success, but people are no longer interested in what are we going to do. They are more interested, now, in: what are we doing'But I wish to state that in the Federal Ministry of Education, we have realized that we know all the problems. We know that what we have to do now is to act, and that is why any report that we have, we are starting the process of implementing and we are bringing in people. For instance, our Task Team has submitted its Report to Mr. President and we have already inaugurated our high level committee on the implementation of that report as approved by Mr. President.We also brought in a scholar, who chaired the Presidential Task Team Committee. We brought him to be the technical adviser for the group. I am the chair for that committee that would now look at all the decisions that have been approved. And of course, what we are going to do is to implement the entire report. Implementing that report will lead to some successes in terms of what we are doing in the development of education.For example, take the issue of Secondary Education Commission. Nigerians are tired of commissions, committees and all these boards that we have been having, because they are not seeing any result. So, we have decided to enhance the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), expand its mandate to incorporate the secondary education component and it would be called the Basic and Secondary Education Commission after the amendment of the Act. By the time we do that, we want to transfer all the unity colleges under the direct supervision of UBEC. Of course, the federal government's decision is that it would retain all the unity colleges. There has been an outcry that the federal government is pulling out and selling them, but that is not true. They (Unity Schools) are going to remain with the Federal government, but they are going to be under the Universal Basic Education Commission, so that all the administrative processes would be through UBEC, just like we are having with the universities and polytechnics and colleges of education.We have also realized that we haven't done much with the unity colleges since we were not even sure of the position of the government. But now that we are certain they are going to remain with us, we have agreed with government that we are going to start taking them in batches in terms of the overall renovation, giving them the required facilities that would enhance them to become centres of excellence.
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