CredoWriters: Wakdok, Samuel Stephen.
The good news is this: students no longer need to sacrifice their time and leisure to learn and pass exams. The bad news is: parents will keep wasting their scarce resources for their children and wards to re-write exams. The worse news is: government has blamed the students for the catastrophe. The worst news therefore is that education is now an illiterate in Nigeria. The miscarriage of our educational system is the craft of a nation deficient in sensitive leadership.
Only 25.99% of students who sat for the 2009 West African Examination Council SSCE passed the minimum requirements of credits in five subjects including English language and mathematics. This is said to be an improvement over the 13% performance of last year, 2008. Alarmed by this dismal performance, the government has set up a probe panel. Ironically, the government is responsible for the educational bankruptcy in the land. The government over the years is the chief failure. While United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) prescribe that a minimum of 26 % of nations’ budget be dedicated to the educational sector, Nigeria rarely achieves a double digit budget for education. The little that is budgeted is leaked out through inefficiency of resource allocation and other corrupt practices.
Education has never been the priority of any Nigerian government. There is paucity of funds, the standards have been abused and re-abused. Investment in education and its facilities are absent or very minimal to achieve positive effects. The quality of learning is further dampened by the level of poverty and the problems of insecurity and instability. Libraries and laboratories are either extinct or exist on life support programmes. Hostels, classrooms, furniture, dinning and sport/ recreational facilities are very inadequate. Students learn in over crowded classrooms, many sit on the floor or windows during teaching hours. Strikes have permeated the sector to the extent that secondary and primary schools remain shut for several months due to the inability of governments at various levels to meet up with teachers’ demands.
Finland has a 100% literacy rate. About 50% of Finland’s annual budget is spent on education. An educated nation is a developed nation, as it is said; the heart of education is the education of the heart. Nigerian Government can not be yelping over the failure rate of the students when the same government has debased education in the country through acts of commission and omission. The quality of teaching and teachers in Nigeria is unsatisfactory. The students are taught by teachers who either couldn’t pass their own exams or couldn’t get admission to other preferred tertiary institutions. We no longer have teachers by choice but by chance. The country churns out sub standard and disillusioned teachers. How can they produce an excellent or average crop of students?
To illustrate the importance of education in our nation, SSCE is the minimum requirement for contesting election in Nigeria. It is more rewarding to be a kidnapper these days than to be a serious minded student. It is more honourable to be a political thug than to be a committed student. Graduates roam and saunter the streets without employment, making years of study an exercise in futility.
Our government must urgently arrest this ugly descent into abyss by probing its own role in the mis-education of our students. Adequate funds and lasting investments must be provided to rescue the sector from ultimate collapse. The learning environment must be rescued from sliding further. Efforts should be made to reintroduce teachers colleges which will attract and enthuse our young generation to the teaching profession and grow them to become experienced and qualified teachers. The condition of service for teachers and those associated with teaching must be enhanced. Numerical and scientific based curricula should be upgraded and integrated into our national appetite.
A minimum of Diploma / NCE with credits in five subjects including mathematics or English language or both should be made the minimum requirements for contesting elections in Nigeria for a start. Rather than exporting scarce teaching skills through the Technical Aid Corps and other bilateral or multi lateral arrangements, Nigeria should flood our schools with adequate teaching manpower. The Parents Teachers Association (PTAs) must become watch dogs. They should not only stop at the provision of chairs and building of fences in the schools, but must actively superintend over the quality of academic and extra curricular contents taught in these schools. Teachers should be trained and re-trained, equipped with modern teaching aids and kits.
Nigerians as a whole must take more than a passing interest in the state of our educational system. It is high time corporate organizations adopted schools to nurture and wealthy individuals can donate teaching and learning materials. A teachers’ welfare insurance scheme should be designed and implemented. Internet based networking programmes should be developed and schools can be categorized and graded based on performance. Each school will have a vertical linkage to allow for interactions and exchange of information and ideas. There should also be a horizontal peer review to enable competition among schools of equal categories.
Above all, the government must stop playing politics with education in Nigeria. Qualified administrators and not non-challant politicians should be appointed to steer the educational system in Nigeria. Unfortunately, if we allow the level of mass failure to continue at such terrifying rate, then I dare say there is no book in face book and our children will only continue to browse and hit million clicks on the internet. This will not be for research or academic purposes but for cyber crimes, chats and pornography. The developers of face book and other internet sites will continue to rake in millions of dollars from online traffic and advertisements while our nation keeps collapsing from the excess luggage of a failed educational system.
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