We Will Teach Nursery School Pupils Software Development – Osinbajo

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.

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.”