Education is key to Nigeria’s future – Prof French
By Abimbola Mohammed
Professor Howard French, an international journalist and author of several history books, has urged Nigeria to seize the opportunity of its demographic dividend to build wealth, invest more in its education, productivity and grow its economic power and resources.
Prof French made this call at the edition of Sterling One Foundation leadership series 2022 with the theme: “Born in Blackness: Truth, Lies & X”. The event, which was held in Ikoyi, Lagos, was designed to bring together a diverse and distinctive group of opinion leaders, global thinkers and change makers to shift the mindset and mental models of leadership for individuals and organizations alike.
According to the renowned journalist, education and economic development go hand in hand; therefore, any nation that wants to grow in productivity and economic power should invest more in the education of its young generation.
“I believe that education will be the key to Nigeria’s economic future and also that Nigeria needs to do more for its people in terms of education. Nigeria can redouble its investment in education and truly make this into national priority for a sustained period of time by committing the appropriate kind of resources and really work hard towards this. Nigeria will grow in its economic productivity,” he said.
He mentioned that in the 1980s, the Republic of China was able to figure out how to put itself on the road map of its economic power.
“China was able to figure out the part that put them on the road to economic power. That was an era of economic reform for them. China was going into what demographers call demographic dividend (the ratio of young people compared to old people is very high),” he said.
“This is particularly similar to Nigeria because of her demographic dividend. Nigeria has enormous young people and every young person not getting properly educated today is a liability for Nigeria of the future.
“I will urge Nigeria to embrace this opportunity presented to her. Think like the Chinese because if you miss this historic chance, then it’s your own fault. You can’t afford to miss this chance when you have so many young people of school and working age. But, you have to put them in the position to succeed, and that begins and ends with education because if you give everyone a good education they will take care of themselves,” he said.
Prof French believes that the reason Nigerians still fight over religious issues is because there is not enough education, and that deprives them of the ability to see the most important features of life.
“Economic development and education go hand in hand; they offer a prospect of making religious division much less important features of life. As more and more countries become economically developed, and as the general level of education rises, the trend you will notice in the world is that the level of religious striving will begin to gradually decline.
“The side benefit we would see over time is that people won’t have to tell anyone who or what version of God to believe in. General education of high enough quality will make people take God as their private matter and not a matter of needing to crusade other people or get into conflict with other people,” he concluded.
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