By TINA TIMOTHY

The Labour Party (LP) Presidential Candidate in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi, has expressed worry over the poor results and percentages of the 2024 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), describing it as “troubling” and “alarming”.

On his verified X handle @PeterObi, on Thursday, May 9, the former Anambra state governor said the Nigerian education sector lacks attention hence the “obvious gap in the quality of education provided nationwide.”

Obi wrote: “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).”

Obi, while comparing Nigeria to a few other nations, further lamented that the country “has continued to lag behind in education” and attributed it to the “systemic challenge in access to quality education, particularly in rural areas as well as low number of full-time students (about 2 million) with a population of over 200 million.

He continues: ”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.”

In proffering solution, Obi reiterated that the Nigerian education sector needs urgent attention and must be prioritized by “aggressively investing in education, enhancing teacher training programs, and implementing inclusive policies.”

“This underscores the urgency of the attention needed in our education sector. In solving this challenge, we must prioritise education as a key driver of development by aggressively investing in education, enhancing teacher training programs, and implementing inclusive policies.

“A new Nigeria is indeed Possible,” he added.

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