Nothing prestigious about being education minister — Anwukah

Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, says he hasn’t found anything impressive in his job for over two years.

You are said to have traveled abroad for medical check up over an unknown illness. What is actually wrong with you?

I don't know why it became news that an individual got sick and went for treatment. It could be because of my position as a minister. I am a very active person and sometime ago I felt I was getting weak and I went for a medical check up. It was found that I have high blood cholesterol and I sent the report of the medial examination to my son who is a medical doctor in the US. He said he was not satisfied with the result and advised that I go for treatment. Luckily, he told my state governor (Imo), Rochas Okorocha, who provided me with a return air ticket to US and I went and they reduced the cholesterol level and I am back.

I think the person who told you that I was sick should have told you that I went for a medical check; it should have been in good faith. But the way the people reacted; some said I had prostate cancer, others said it was poisoning.

I want to tell Nigerians that I am back to work and I am in good health. This job is such that both the working and the living environments are not favourable. I live in a very remote area of Abuja where there is poor supply of electricity; you sleep all night sweating and you wake up and come to work. If you check through the windows of my office you will see generators and the exhaust fumes enter into the office. This can cause carbon monoxide poisoning. But Nigerians see the minister's job as a big thing; that one is living in splendour.

My office as a vice-chancellor was 10 times bigger than this (minister's office). There is nothing exciting about this job. I don't know why there was much fanfare about it. You came to do selfless service, not that they pay you big; there is nothing about it that should excite anybody. I have been a vice-chancellor and secretary to a state government and I know what the fanfare of office is.

Did you receive treatment for prostate cancer?

I had no prostate cancer.

You went to Dallas in the US for medical treatment. What is your take about Nigeria’s health system?

I don't know anything about that. I have a son who is serving as medical doctor and who was concerned about the health of his father that was diagnosed to have high blood cholesterol. He flew in and took his father out for treatment.

You are a passionate teacher and you maintain passion for the profession. What effort have you made to attract quality teachers?

I am proposing a memo for the government; we have to look at teacher quality and training in Nigeria and to get the right people into the profession. We have to give unique status to teachers. If we want to get quality teachers we must make the entry point at GL 09 not 08. And students in teacher training colleges must be given scholarships.

The recent announcement by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on admission is not acceptable. There is no point saying that candidates seeking admission into colleges of education needed to score 100 marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) while those going to university should obtain 120 marks. It should be the other way round; those going to the colleges should have 200 marks to attract good people. Again, we must provide more incentives for teachers.

Will your memo include teachers under the states and local governments?

I have no mandate to instruct state governors on education but standards are set and we plead with them to pay particular attention to education because that is our future. They are doing their best in the face of scarce resources.

Decaying school infrastructure is taking a toll everywhere. Have you made efforts on that?

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is doing a lot of work to improve infrastructure but there is supposed to be matching grants from the states on funding. And most states haven't released their grants to be able to access UBEC funds and if they don't do that, the problem of infrastructure cannot be tackled.

Authorities of a Federal Government Girls College recently said students were starving due to inadequate meal subsidy grants from government. Why?

We make our proposals based on inputs submitted by schools and we go to the lawmakers to defend them. You have a situation where you provide enough monies for meal subsidy and you go to defend it and the efforts are not successful. We proposed adequate money per child per meal but it was reduced.