Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State says Nigerian graduates are not innovative and inventive because they are not exposed to productive skills and competencies in discovering new things through experiential learning.

The governor stated this while delivering the first Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Distinguished Personalities Lecture Series entitled “Experiential Learning: Building the Wealth of the Nation.” on Tuesday in Enugu.

He said Nigeria’s current education model and spending could not deliver the much-needed speedy development and economic transformation.

Mr Mbah, however, pushed for an urgent paradigm shift from rote or memorisation to experiential learning, which he described as the missing link among education, industrialisation, and GDP growth.

“Why do Nigerian universities seldom feature on the global ranking list of the world’s best universities? Why have they seemed perennially unable to become the ideas factory which universities ought to be? Why are our universities not producing inventive graduates?

“The answers to these questions lie in many inconvenient truths, amongst which is the fact that the learning in our schools, from basic to tertiary, has for years not imbued our young people with productive skills and competencies. This is a root cause of our underdevelopment.”

While noting that knowledge had always been the prime lever for progress throughout human history, Mr Mbah said nations like the U.S., China, Germany, and the Netherlands, which invested the most in building a qualitative and experiential education ecosystem, were the world’s leading economies.

The governor said his administration was currently building 260 smart green schools to power experiential learning in the 260 wards of Enugu State.

He stressed that by embedding the model from the basic to tertiary levels of education, Enugu was creating a seamless pipeline where students progress from foundational learning to practical innovation.

Mr Mbah also directed all state-owned tertiary institutions to deliver experiential learning.

“So, we hereby announce as a policy that all state-owned tertiary institutions in Enugu State must henceforth deliver experiential learning to our children.

“We want to see this change reflected in planning, budget, curriculum reform, assessment and promotions, as well as research.

“Experiential learning ensures that education is deeply connected to the challenges and opportunities of the real world.

“It fosters critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. It empowers students to see themselves not as passive learners but as active problem-solvers,” he said.

He added that his administration’s allocation of 33 per cent of the state’s budget to the education sector was due to the value the government attached to education and experiential learning.

The vice chancellor of ESUT, Alloysius-Michael Okolie; pro-chancellor and chairman of ESUT governing council, Chinyeaka Oha and chairman of the public lecture, Obiora Ike, commended Mr Mbah for his investments in the education sector and the transformational leadership across all sectors.

(NAN)