The Federal government and the private sector have been advised to stop taking decisions that are not backed by data or evidence, to avoid frequent policy somersault.
The advice was given on Wednesday by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Development in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Professor Ursula Ngozi Akanwa while delivering the 65th Inaugural Lecture of the University.
Akanwa, who criticised premature termination or replacement of policies without allowing them to last a period of time, said policy somersault prevents good programmes from being assessed and evaluated, adding that it takes away the chances of recording sound achievements.
She lamented that Nigeria is losing resources and suffering economic wastage as a result of policy somersault and non-application of diligent assessment. The academic advocated for establishment of assessment units in all organised systems in the country.
The Deputy Vice Chancellor pointed that various policies introduced in Nigeria’s educational system, including JAMB, CBT, WAEC, NECO, and in the universities should be properly assessed and evaluated over a period of time to understand their results on the students, not just as policy proclamations.
“In Nigeria, we have a lot of policy somersaults. We should stop taking decisions that are not evidence-based and avoid policy somersaults.
“Once there are policy somersault, it means that you will have inconsistencies and when you have inconsistencies, you have leakages and waste of resources
“You assess, generate, evaluate the data in line with prevailing circumstances and environmental differences looking at all dimensions”, Professor Akanwa said.
The Professor of Educational Measurement and Evaluation further added that some programmes introduced by the government sounded well theoretically but were not founded on evidence-based data, resulting in their failures.
In his speech, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe urged Nigerians to hold the leaders accountable to work with properly assessed data.
