BY DANIEL IDONOR

ABUJA – STRONG indication, yesterday, emerged that like many states, the Federal Government has concluded arrangement to split Education ministry into pre- and tertiary education to be manned separately by the two ministers after May 29.

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday considered a separation of pre- and tertiary education as different job schedules for the two ministers handling the ministry.

The president gave the indication when he received the report of the Presidential Task Team on Education, chaired by Professor Pai Obanya.

The team’s report, which is in two volumes entitled: “Necessary First Steps In Moving Education Forward in Nigeria,”recommended, among other things, a splitting of the ministry into two as it was too large and complex whereas tertiary education was expanding exponentially.

But Jonathan who thanked the committee for a job well done and promised to start his new administration with the recommendations, argued against splitting of the ministry in favour of redesigning the job schedules of the two or three ministers that would be assigned to man the ministry.

In that regard, one minister can specifically handle pre_tertiary education while a minister of state can be saddled with tertiary education, the president suggested.

Jonathan reiterated that the administration’s commitment to Vision 2020 will be incomplete without strengthening the country’s educational system.

“Education is core to whatever we want to do as a nation. Nigeria cannot make much progress towards the attainment of its Vision 20_2020 unless we strengthen our educational system.

“We will therefore do our best in the next four years to reposition our educational sector in a way that the entire nation will appreciate,” the President said.

He opined that neighbouring countries should be sending their  children to acquire solid education in Nigeria and not the other way round.

The task team’s other recommendations include non_creation of new parastatals in the education ministry and reforming  the 6_3_3_4 system as the policy is not essentially bad but should be made more result oriented.

The team also recommended accelerated action on the National Teacher Education Policy and the speedy implementation of the new Teachers Salary Scale.