school, saying government alone could not meet the challenges of unemployment in the country.
Mrs. Ahmed-Rufai, who gave the advice at the weekend at the 31st convocation ceremony of the Adeyemi College of Education,
Ondo, said few vacancies that existed in the civil service could not meet the demands of thousands of fresh graduates searching
for gainful employment.
She, therefore, charged them to embrace entrepreneurial skills and develop initiatives for self-employment generation, noting that
no nation can develop without adequately investing in human capital development.
Represented by the permanent secretary in the federal ministry of education, Oladapo Afolabi, the minister said the education
sector was presently being repositioned to enable it play the very important role of providing the much-needed human capital to
transform the country to a better place to live.
“The Federal Ministry of Education has taken various steps to transform the sector. One of such steps is the unveiling of the Road
Map for the sector in March, 2009,” he said.
“The aim of the Road Map is to provide the much needed qualitative education and to address the four cardinal points of Access
and Equity; Standards and Quality; Standards and Quality Assurance; Technical and Vocational Education; Training, as well as
Funding and Resource Utilization.”
Upgrade the school
The chairman, governing council of the institution, Grace Ekong, lauded the ministry for its recent move to upgrade the college to a
university status. She urged the Federal Executive Council to approve the proposal to elevate some federal colleges of education in
the country to degree awarding universities, stressing that efforts had been made in the past towards upgrading the college to an
autonomous degree awarding university of education.
“We will still work towards attaining the status. Adeyemi College of Education, no doubt, has on ground, facilities suitable for a
university of education and it is already producing degree graduates,” she said.
About 6, 669 students of the institution will be presented with degree certificates, while 4, 068 will have their Nigeria Certificate of
Education.