Country Director of Nexford University, Olamidun Majekodunmi, has said that she made Nigeria a primary market for the university to relieve students of the challenges education face in the country.
She disclosed this during a hybrid graduation of 200 master’s degree students of the institution held in Lagos State, south west Nigeria, recently.
Nigeria is bedevilled by incessant disruptions in academic activities, including face-offs between government and academic staff unions. Nexford came to disrupt those disruptions.
Her words, “Today marks a major milestone and emphasises the impact of a vehicle of disruption like Nexford to the society at large. We must be proud of what we’ve all achieved together as we celebrate this set of 200 pioneer MBA graduates from Nigeria alone. This is only the beginning.”
According to her, with an MBA from Nexford, a scholar is a cut above the rest.
“You applied extra tenacity to complete your online degree, many of you doing full-time jobs, during a pandemic, often without constant power supply and connectivity, combined with spikes in foreign exchange rates, are blessed,” Majekodunmi added.
Advisory board member of Nexford, Obiageli Ezekwesili, in her speech at the event, canvassed public-private partnership in Nigeria’s education sector.
The country’s former Minister of Education said, “It is about the public and private sectors working in harmony. You have to address issues of access, relevance and quality. And it requires government as regulator of education, the standard sectors as well as the private sector, with a lot more money to support the kind of quality faculty that teaches the kind of things that Nexford is able to teach.
“Every university system is determined by the quality of its faculty and curriculum. If you do not work with your private sector for tertiary education, you will be producing graduates that have no business in the economy; so, they will become jobless. It is important to bear that in mind in the way we design education policies.”
On his part, Senior Pastor of Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo, said the pandemic made virtual education part of the new normal.
”I congratulate the graduands. I think they have moved to the next level of education, virtual education, where you can receive education anywhere in the world and education-knowledge is power. Without knowledge, the people are defeated. But the more knowledge and exposure you can have, the more you can be an international citizen, the better you are,” he said.
Founder of Andela, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, said, “It is important for us to understand where the world is going, which is that, all of a sudden, there is a huge shift from natural resources being the primary source of the country’s wealth to human resources. That is why the work Nexford is doing is very important.
“Over the next 15 years, we (Nigerians) are going to be over 300 million people and we don’t have any scalable infrastructure for educating our children. In the past 18 months, young people have not been able to go to any university (in Nigeria) because of the pandemic and the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike. Online education is fast becoming a lifeline for our schools.”
