The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has expressed concern over the poor quality of education in the country, saying the nation’s learning system “is still in a quandary.”

Director of Communications, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Chris Anyanwu, said this in a statement on Tuesday, ahead of the Catholic bishops’ first plenary for 2014 with the theme: Church/State Partnership in Providing Quality Education for Nigerian People.” The event has been scheduled for March 8 and 14 at the Daughters of Divine Love Retreat and Conference Centre, in Lugbe, Abuja.

According to the statement, the CBCN has therefore called for full partnership of the Church and state in running the affairs in the nation’s education sector.

The conference described as worrisome the fact that parents continue “to seek qualitative education for their children outside the shores of Nigeria,” while those learning at home were at the mercy of shylock school proprietors “who exploit the advantage to rip-off Nigerian parents of their hard earned money.”

Anyanwu’s statement read in part, “Today, our education system is still in a quandary, in spite of efforts by subsequent governments, introduction of several policies and directives that have further threatened the standard of education in our country. Many questions have continued to arise in respect of the standard of our educational system without any hopeful answers from government and our policy makers.

“Even this opportunity (for foreign education) is for a privileged few. For those in public schools, the children, who are in the majority are educated at the mercy of “mother luck”, in spite of the huge sums of money allegedly spent by governments on these public institutions of learning.”