AU commissioner says the union is committed to providing education for youths

Prof. Sarah Agbor, the Commissioner Human Resources, Science and Technology, African Union (AU), says the union will continue to facilitate education among African youths.

She spoke in an interview at the 72nd Foundation Day and Convocation ceremony of the University of Ibadan. She said the youth that “constitute 70 per cent of the continent’s population” needed good education for development.

Agbor said AU would keep on pushing to realise the right goals and would get the right things done for Africa. “Our youths are our demographics dividends; they constitute more than 70 per cent of our population.

“So, if we don’t give competencies and skills for the future of work, who else can do that and it is only through education that this can be done.

“We believe in education and the power of education to transform the world and leads us to sustainable development for the Africa we want by 2063 because tomorrow belongs to those who prepared for it today,” she said.

Agbor noted that the union came up with a continental strategy called the Continental Education Strategy for Africa embedded in the 50 years blueprint of Agenda 2063 divided into five phases of 10 years each.

“Each of this phase has continental strategy that we must put in place to improve early child education development, higher education, curriculum development.

“We need to change our curriculum to address the future of work so that we do not have graduates with certificates but they do not have jobs. They become job seekers rather than being jobs creators.

“Then, we have STEM — Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics — these are very important to the future of work. “You speak of digitisation, science technology innovation their foundation must be on STEM.

“Then we have ICT, the transformation that we are talking about Virtual education and so on we put on ICT.

“We also have higher education, lifelong learning and the culture of reading, Africans must learn how to read we hardly read. “All our lives we like to watch videos on internet and so on we need to change that paradigm,” she said.

The AU commissioner also said “Africa Union is set to bridge digital divides and invest in green energy to promote remote learning.