 I've been asked to speak on academic excellence as a tool for nation building and I will speak I hope for very few minutes on this. Nigeria as you know is Africa's most popular country and like the rest of the continent it is a nation of very young people. Half the population are below the age of 20 and by the year 2050 we are told that will be the third most popular country in the world. Exceeded with numbers only by India and China in that order 60% of that population will be made up of young people and average age is about 17.5 years. So we are going to have a large youth population that of course can be a tremendous blessing for economic growth and prosperity. It can also be a problem especially if we don't plan well and well in advance. Poverty, extreme poverty further complicates the problem for countries like ours. In the last poverty surveys which was done in 2012 that's the last cycle of household poverty surveys done. Estimated to have about 112 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty. And so poverty is both a cause and consequence of some of the poor educational attainments that we have. So we have you know the figures on education and educational attainment. I really quite you, I'm not going to go into all of that. Currently we have something in the order of about 9 million children out of school. Some people say it's more than that but the current estimate is perhaps about 9 million children out of school. Most of them are in the poorest parts of the country. Of those in school even of those who go to school about 20% of those who have actually completed public primary education will not actually be able to read many of them after completing primary school. Still cannot read. Girls constitute the largest of course majority of those out of school children. So there are a lot of arguments and some of us may be familiar with the arguments about how crucial education is to reducing extreme poverty. And some will say well it has some effect but not all you know it may not be entirely true to say that education will always reduce poverty. But I think the statistics especially from those who have done credible surveys. The UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report is one. Another is the Education Commission's Learning Generation Report. These are fairly credible surveys that have been done show that education actually has a major impact on several aspects of what will constitute good living or release the standard of living in a society. So for example there's important evidence showing that individual earnings will actually grow if people are well educated. They go to school. So education we were told raises poverty you know by almost 60% in most communities. So you have in Africa for example we're told that about 171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if all children left school just with basic reading skills, just basic reading skills. That's equivalent to about 12% of the drop in the total number of those who cannot read or write at home. Absolute poverty that is people who cannot afford to buy food and who cannot afford shelter, clothing or decent food will reduce by 30% just by basic reading skills. The other point they say is that education actually increases individual earnings. So it increases earnings by about 10% but year of schooling. So for every year of schooling your chances of being better paid or having more money is actually increased by 10%. So for each $1 or $3.69 that is invested in education there's an increase of $5 or in high income countries $2.5 in lower income countries in actual earnings that a person can make. The other is that education reduces economic inequalities. So if workers from poor and rich backgrounds receive the same education the disparity between the two in working poverty actually decreases by 39%. They also found that education promotes economic growth and there are all sorts of other statistics. One of the critical things is that we have a huge population and that population continues to grow. Part of it is because those who live in extreme poverty have far more children than those who are better off. So the average person who lives in extreme poverty would have up to 5 children. Those who are much better off would have an average of about 3 children. With education you actually have a reduction in the number of children who have a reduction in the population which of course makes it somewhat more manageable to run a society especially where it comes to providing the required services for people. So there's a three-fold plan to improve educational outcomes and that plan is one that's worked out between the federal government and the state government. Actually many of us are familiar with the fact that education especially primary and secondary education is run by state governments. For secondary schools you have a few unity schools owned by the federal government but the main bulk of all of the work on education is done by the state governments. But then the federal government sets the tone, sets the standards and the federal government can also assist and work with the state governments as effectively as possible which is one we've tried to do. I chaired the National Economic Council, the National Economic Council, the Council of all the Governors of the States and we meet every month and one of the critical issues I've been looking at is how to develop a new curriculum for education. I've gone very far with the Ministry of Education. But then as I said, we have a three-fold plan. The first aspect of that plan is to ensure that we're able to attain all of the outcomes specified in the sustainable goals, all of the sustainable outcomes. And those targets include school enrollment, quality of education, adult literacy, quality of teaching and all of those targets we intend to meet those targets. Now also, we intend to work on the 9 million out-of-school children. A lot of that work has already been done anyway. And this of course is a complex process because it involves the full cooperation of state governments, religious authorities in some cases and of course public-spirited indigenous and groups. The whole idea is to properly equip and train teachers, properly equip and train educators across the country. We also need to improve school enrollment. Already, school enrollment has increased in many cases by over 30% in the last two and a half years, largely on account of our school feeding program. Now the school feeding program is a program where we give public schools in 26 states at the moment lunch every day. There are about 9.2 million children who enjoy that facility now. So there is lunch for them every day in these public schools in 26 states today. Now that has increased enrollment because many children from poor homes, of course, don't hardly ever be able to eat a food the other day. So this is a major attraction. The meal, of course, is a major attraction. It also increases learning abilities because one of the chief problems where you're hungry is of course that you cannot concentrate. Aside from that, malnutrition is a major problem. That actually stunts growth. And some of the stories that you hear about malnutrition and how it stunts mental growth are really quite heartbreaking. Because you just find that, especially between the ages of 0 and 5, if children are not properly fed within that period, mentally they are much weaker than those who are well fed in that same period of their lives. So the school feeding program falls a very important component, not just of improving enrollment, but also improving ability to learn. Now the third plank of that program is that we recognize that we're not just dealing with a rapid population growth. We're also dealing with rapid changes in technology, rapid changes in the way things are being done, in innovation and all of that. So the educational challenge for us is a radical one. We simply cannot educate in the way that we used to educate 10 years ago. Besides, to eradicate poverty, our education must equip young people to be productive. This is why we're currently working on a far-reaching, skins-based curriculum on science, technology, education, art and math. Now this is a curriculum for primary and secondary schools. The core skills that that curriculum will have is coding, computer programming, design, thinking, computer-generated imaging, animation, graphics design, etc. Robotics also, networking and basic engineering applications. It's one of the things we've found. We have a program called the N-Power program. It's a youth program for graduates who have not been able to find one. About 3,000 of them are currently being trained in animation skills and techniques. And we find that people take so easily to some of these things. And the younger people are, the easier it is for them to learn all of these various technology skills. So we think that to develop the kinds of young people who will be able to take on the challenges of the 21st century and get the kind of work that the 21st century is producing already, we simply have to change the way we teach and what we teach. And we're working in collaboration with MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the Oracle Academy, with Microsoft, Cisco Academy and IBM. They're working with us in developing the curriculum. The University of Education and the various states are also working with us. And the immediate plan is to reach with this form of education of 2 million pupils in the first year. The plan also envisions a new classroom structure that permits the cultivation and expression and early adoption of skills that will work or will function in the environment that has already been created. The next question that we ask is, for whom do we plan? Who are we really planning for? And the answer is quite straightforward. It is the Nigerian child. Not just the ones in the urban areas or the few that can afford decent schooling above the standards of public schools generally. The real slogan for us is every child comes. That's the name of the policy, which means that we have a completely democratized vision of a qualitative and relevant education to reach every Nigerian child. Every child comes and shows that all children of the number of children, especially those who are reported to be out of school now, especially in those areas where children tend to drop out of school much faster, all of them deserve to get a decent education. All of them must be reached by this program. And this is one of the real aspirations of that program. So we're looking at how to ensure that children not only get a decent education, but it also means that classroom by classroom, school by school, our public schools become really the place where young people can learn. And we can set an objective standard for how to educate the other Nigerian child regardless of where they're from. It's an ambitious plan to reach and equip at least 10,000 classrooms every year under this program. The question of who do we plan for also takes into account our teachers. To impart the relevant qualitative and excellent education of our vision, teacher training must be overhauled by a wide scale and, of course, disruptive methods. So we're backing on a massive nationwide teacher training program. We will ensure that educators, those who are responsible for bringing up our young people, are trained in the most current ways and the most current technology. As part of our plan, our educational system will also promote and develop skills that are key to nation building such as hard work, discipline, cooperation, unity, respect, service, leadership, the civic skills that are so important in developing and building a nation. But the work of changing the story of educational failure in Nigeria is not just for governments alone. I must say that I'm extremely proud of the way that Grange has enthusiastically collaborated with my office in some of the important work that we're doing at the Learning Center in Maiduguru. And the Learning Center is where we have, the Learning Center in Maiduguru is where we have a world-class education and boarding free, free of charge, children who are victims of the conflict in the Northeast. So we have a facility that will take about 8,200 children and there we also have, you know, all manner of facilities which we hope will be useful in the education. And as I said, I'm extremely proud of the work that Grange is doing with us in being able to pass on the education of the children and I met a young man who does a lot of work, especially, he's not even in university yet, he's just left on his way to university. And he's been doing a lot of work with teaching English, teaching English in some parts of the North. And he's been doing this largely, you know, by creating graphics, you know, and he's been doing this largely, you know, by creating graphics and designs that are useful in teaching. And it's not a big thing, but it is so tremendously impactful. Even just impacting one, two, three, five people makes a world of difference to their lives and you don't even know who you are training.