Babalakin pushes education as catalyst for economic recovery

“Nigeria is at crossroads and I believe very strongly that the emancipation of our great country will be led by the reformation of the education sector. Once we get the education system on the proper footing, it will propel the other sectors of the nation and begin an unstoppable forward movement,” he said. Babalakin, who disclosed this in Ede, Osun State at a retreat organised by the Osun State University (UNIOSUN), said “it is very unfortunate that a country with a population of about 150million persons and the largest country in the Africa continent has no tertiary institution that has any favourable rating in the world.” He went on: “We have to set key performance indicators that are consistent with international best practices that must be aspired to by all universities. It will among other things assess the contribution of the university to the larger society, as well as rate the universities using the appropriate criteria which include student-staff ratio. “More saddening is that once upon a time, Nigeria had universities that were highly rated in the world. I recall watching a television programme some time ago, where Prof. Olu Akinkugbe, an outstanding academic and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin and Ahmadu Bello University, stated that at a point in time, the University College Hospital, Ibadan, was rated as the fourth among medical institutions in the Commonwealth.]]>