A PRESIDENTIAL aspirant on the platform of the Action Peoples Party (APP) Steve Arowolo has promised to introduce a skill-driven educational system that will produce employable youths in the country.
Arowolo made the promise in an exclusive interview with The ICIR in Abuja ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The interview was part of a publicity platform created by The ICIR to support young and low-voice politicians across all political parties in the country.
The aspirant stressed the need to restructure the educational sector by adding vocational skills to the curriculum to make the youths more employable.
“We need a skill-driven education system. Currently our education system is driven by paper and certificate. You have a degree, you have a diploma and all that so that’s why our vision for the nation, one of them is to begin to think in terms of vocational centres and institutes where people are trained in terms of skills that are relevant to today’s reality.
“Those things are very important; we don’t want to talk about building more universities when the current universities are suffering, when the infrastructure within our education system is dilapidated. We need to look beyond that and think of how we can begin to produce employable youths in these current generation,” he said.
Arowolo also promised to strengthen the fight against corruption by building the capacity of anti-graft agencies.
The presidential aspirant also spoke of plans to adopt e-governance system that will enable Nigerians access information about government activities virtually.
He said, “That is the reason why our government will be introducing what we call e-governance. E-governance is so important but the government has not embraced it and that’s why in Nigeria today, if you go to some of the ministries, whether it is federal ministries or state ministries, you cannot access them online. Many of the government ministries don’t even have websites.
“With e-governance people can sit in the comfort of their houses and offices and access relevant information.”
Arowolo noted that e-governance will reduce the level of corruption in the public sector.
“It will reduce the level of inter-personal relationship. You know the contact you have with people that’s when money exchange hands, that’s where corruption takes place but e-governance can address that problem to a large extent because people can operate virtually,” he added.
Blessing Otoibhi is a Multimedia Journalist and Anchor host for the News in 60 seconds at The International Center For Investigative Reporting. You can shoot her a mail via [email protected] or connect on Twitter @B_otoibhi