Obi noted that Nigeria could not experience real growth and development until it tackled the menace of lack of quality education among the children and youths.
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has said that Nigeria’s 20million out-of-school children is more in population than the entire people of Norway, Singapore, and Dubai put together.
Obi noted that Nigeria could not experience real growth and development until it tackled the menace of lack of quality education among the children and youths.
The former Anambra State Governor spoke on Friday in Abuja, while delivering a keynote address at the graduation ceremony of students of Pacesetters Academy, Abuja, according to Vanguard.
He noted that education was the most important thing that any nation needed.
He said, “For me, education is the most important thing that any nation needs. What differentiates developed and underdeveloped is education. It is the foundation. Even when you go out and people tell you about measures of development being hinged on the human development index and they tell you it is education, health and per capital income, I will tell you that of all these three, health is about education, if you don’t have a well-educated society, you can’t have a healthy society.”
He spoke further “The more you put people out of poverty, the more you reduce humanity and you can’t do that unless you invest in education. The more people are educated, the more they put themselves out of poverty and that is critical. You can’t have 20 million out-of-school children and think of development tomorrow. We must have to invest in education.
“If you follow 2022 world population of countries, the population of Norway, the population of Island, the population of Singapore and the population of Dubai, if you put the population of these big successful countries together, we are talking of the population of 19.7 million and we are talking of 20 million out-of-school children, so we are more than population of these four successful, thriving, respectable developed countries put together out of school. So imagine what it will be if we invest in education. So investment in education is critical.”
He tasked teachers not to be discouraged by the current development.
“Do not be discouraged because people don’t regard or celebrate you. Know that what you are doing is noble. It is important for the society. We can’t have people unless we have people with the right character, we can’t have people unless we have people with the right behaviour, we can’t have people unless we have people with the right discipline,” he noted.