Nigeria is no doubt undergoing a social surgery to position her more effectively on the pan African leadership pedestal; the beauty of this exercise is that it cuts across virtually every strata of our national life. From the Soludo’s abracadabra in the CBN to the EFCC’s aggressive effort at curtailing trans-atlantic transfer of wealth and even to the schools system reforms, the social revolution seems to be the new Nigerian ideal and top priority.

            Upon this background, I am moved to applaud the new Nigerian policy direction in superlative terms but as much as I love to do so, I am held back by my observation on the absence of society’s effort at balancing the new policy initiative on both government’s side and on that of the citizens.

            In my own opinion, government still has a lot to do in ensuring that society internalizes the core aspects of governments policy drive. Even though the government policies as contained in the NEEDS document which was OBJ’s policy programme as well as Yar’adua’s vision 2020 has been projected severally to be Nigeria’s panacea for industrial development, little will be achieved if there are no well mapped out strategies to improve classroom intervention to impact the objectives of this programmes.

            School curricula should be reviewed to include entrepreneurship development schemes as impacting small business development and management skills in the students will prepare them for a functional participation in the nations development process when they are finally eased into the labour market.

As the one-way traffic kind of education is becoming more unpopular in the global community, students should be encouraged to take up interest in craft; IT related skill acquisition (not cyber fraud); photography and even book writing among other engagements.

It is only when the society realizes that the purpose of education is to increase the net value of an individual’s functionality, in the national development process, that we can all be assured of our prosperity as a people

Omotosho Olawale Louis Esq

Society for Black Art and Craft Research,

Abeokuta.