Funmi Ogundare
The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, National Universities Commission (NUC) and different stakeholders are anticipated to converge on Abeokuta, Ogun State, on October 15, to discover how Nigeria can re-engineer its training system to drive industrialisation, innovation, productiveness and job creation.
The stakeholders will take part within the fifth version of the For the Love of the Country (FLOC) convention and symposium, themed, ‘Building a Prosperous Future: Re-Engineering Education and Driving Industrialisation for Innovation, Productivity and Jobs’.
The symposium is anticipated to deliver collectively policymakers, teachers, enterprise leaders, improvement specialists, civic leaders and representatives of the training and industrial sectors to look at sensible methods for constructing a extra productive and affluent Nigeria.
The convener of FLOC, Atinuke Odjenima, mentioned the 2026 version was designed to shift the nationwide dialog from figuring out Nigeria’s challenges to constructing the capabilities required to handle them.
She mentioned the symposium would interrogate how Nigeria may develop an training system able to producing the abilities required by industries, remodel these abilities into productive enterprises and high quality jobs, and strengthen establishments to maintain innovation and productiveness.
“The time has come for Nigeria to move beyond conversations about what is wrong and focus more deliberately on building the capabilities required to change our reality,” Odjenima mentioned.
“This year’s symposium is about asking practical questions: What kind of education system do we need to produce the skills our industries require? How do we turn those skills into productive enterprises and quality jobs? And what institutions must we strengthen to sustain that progress?”
According to her, the selection of Ogun State because the host of symposium 5.0 was deliberate due to the state’s mixture of instructional establishments and industrial actions.
She famous that universities, polytechnics and technical establishments within the state function alongside manufacturing vegetation, agro-processing hubs and different industrial developments, creating a possibility to look at how training and trade may work extra carefully collectively.
“We chose Ogun state because it offers an important context for this conversation. Here, education, skills development, manufacturing and industrial activity exist within the same economic ecosystem,” she mentioned.
“It gives us an opportunity to examine what is working, what needs to change and how we can scale those lessons across Nigeria. The future we want will not be built by slogans; it will be built by people with the right skills, productive industries and institutions that work.”
Odjenima mentioned Nigeria should transfer from discussing the longer term to constructing the capabilities wanted to ship it, stressing that training, trade and establishments had complementary roles to play within the course of.
“Education must produce relevant skills, industry must create opportunities for those skills, and our institutions must provide the foundation for productivity and innovation,” she added.
The 2026 symposium, Odjenima mentioned, would look at how Nigeria may strengthen the connection between training and trade, re-engineer its training system to reply to the altering financial system and develop a workforce geared up for fashionable trade.
Other areas of focus would come with strengthening native manufacturing and constructing establishments able to supporting innovation and productiveness.
She added that Ogun State’s financial profile, which incorporates actions in development supplies, meals processing, prescription drugs, fast-moving client items, logistics and light-weight meeting, made it a sensible setting for the discussions.
“The convergence of training and industrial exercise mirrored the central proposition of symposium 5.0: that training produces functionality, whereas trade converts functionality into jobs, productiveness and prosperity.
FLOC, the Convener, famous, is a civic and nation-building platform, with the target of selling constructive dialogue on governance, public coverage, financial improvement and nationwide transformation.
“The platform brings together political economists, policymakers, business leaders, development experts, civic leaders and other stakeholders, based on the belief that nation-building should involve citizens and not be left to government alone,” she acknowledged.
Odjenima mentioned the occasion would supply stakeholders with a possibility to transfer past broad discussions and interrogate sensible methods for constructing a productive financial system supported by related abilities, sturdy establishments and sustainable industries.
