Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the Federal
Government will change the educational curriculum in such a way
that will enable pre-primary school pupils to learn software
development and coding.
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Osinbajo said this during the 50th National Annual Conference of
the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria held in
Abuja recently.
Speaking at the event with the theme, ‘Stand Out’, the Vice
President said that many countries across the world had begun to
shift focus from natural to human resources development.
He said that any youth, who lacked Information and Communication
Technology skills and knowledge, would become unemployable in the
future, stressing that this had informed the Federal Government’s
decision to infuse educational development in its Economic Recovery
and Growth Plan.
Osinbajo said, “The focus on primary and secondary education is
on employability skills, especially technology. So our focus is on
teaching young people from the primary, even pre-primary, school to
use all the new techniques, especially code writing skills and
software writing skills.
“The new technologies that are developing everything we are
seeing today clearly show that anyone in the coming generation will
be left behind, if they are not equipped with the knowledge of
cutting edge of technology or with a sound knowledge of technology,
at least. We believe that our educational system must incorporate
that, which is why, with the new curriculum, a lot of attention is
focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”
Osinbajo said the government, which was also focusing on
developing the health sector, had committed one per cent of the
Consolidated Revenue Fund to the sector.
He thanked the CIPM for the role it played in compiling the
report on the review of the national minimum wage.
In his remarks, the President of the CIPM, Mr Udom Inoyo, said
there was a need for Nigeria to shift focus from the oil to human
capital development.
Inoyo said, “Nigeria’s population is unquestionably a strategic
asset for sustainable development, but that is if it is properly
harnessed and leveraged. The leading and technologically advanced
nations have shown that the wealth of nations no longer lies in the
possession of abundant natural resources, but in the quality of its
human resource.
“For a country like Nigeria, which is highly dependent on oil,
we need to remind our people that oil is a depleting asset. The
country’s large population, especially our young ones, is where its
strength truly lies.”