BY LAIDE AKINBOADE

ABUJA—The Minister of Education, Mr Nyesom Wike, Thursday, said he was not afraid of stepping on toes to achieve the needed transformation of the education sector.

Wike stated this when the Governing Board of Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, NERDC, paid him a visit in his office.

He also directed the board to enforce the use of standardized textbooks in primary and secondary schools and tasked the council to ensure it asserted its authority as the agency of government charged with approving textbooks to be used in schools.

Wike decried a situation where worthless books were recommended for use in schools because of perceived relationship with the authors.

According to him, “NERDC is responsible for developing the curriculum and should be in the best position to recommend appropriate books, but this is not the case, you must assert your authority and reclaim your mandate.”

In view of dwindling budgetary provision, the minister advised the council to seek ways of generating additional funds internally and prioritize its programmes in line with available resources and objective.

He stressed that resources could hardly be sufficient, even as he observed with dismay that many agencies spend the bulk of their resources on conferences and workshops.

Wike pledged to support the council to achieve its objectives, but urged the Board of NERDC to avoid anything that would lead to in- fighting within management.

Earlier, Chairman of NERDC Board, Dr. Stephen Dike, said that constraint of fund was affecting the council in discharging its mandate, appealing to the minister to mobilize private sector and donor agencies to contribute towards repositioning the research efforts.

“We have done well in curriculum development, but not so well with Research Development because it requires a lot of funding.

“Only about 17 per cent of the Council’s fund is dedicated to its core mandate. The challenges of falling standard of education may not be unconnected to failure of some service institutions.”