Articles

Nigeria’s unending problems: Education

Category: Within the nation Published on Saturday, 14 April 2012 06:00 Written by Kabir Mato Hits: 1696

I chose to reflect on our national calamities on sectoral basis as a strategy of yet putting the issues as they were in the front burner of national discourse not just because we want to talk about the nature and magnitude of the problems that we face but importantly as a mechanic of ramming the issues over and over again so that those who are charged with the responsibilities of running of the affairs of the nation take the necessary attention that are required to rectify these endemic national issues that have stood between Nigerians and good life.

No doubt the nation is endowed with tremendous human and material resources. Our problem has been in the area of management and deployment of these vast resources into better life for the people and the nation. During the week, President Jonathan was in Sokoto and commissioned the harmonization of the Qur’anic and western educational system as a strategy of expanding the horizon of education across the length and breadth of the nation.

A very good initiative if you ask me that was and a fantastic political scheme on the part of a president who blows hot and cold at the same time. What has remained and will continue to remain a reality is that Nigeria is an illiterate society. The level of literacy however varies from one section of the country to the other. In the North, the crisis of education is much higher than in the South. This is only on comparative basis, but throughout the country, you see young people who ought to be in school walking along the streets.

This situation is alarming and squarely responsible for the huge social restiveness that the ruling class and peoples of various persuasions prefer to give different names and meanings. Education is the issue. Whoever gets it right is certainly liberated from the yoke of modern slavery and emasculation. The problem therefore that Nigeria faces today rests squarely within the framework of weak education and the worry is that the situation continues to deteriorate in the face of growing national and global challenges.

It is no news saying any more that educational infrastructures in the country have broken down. In Nigeria today, especially in the North public school system has collapsed. The private system does not also seem to flourishing because the factors that were responsible for the collapse of the public school system have contagious effects on the private schools so what you have at the end of the day is a system that is not working well.

The dream by Nigerian rulers who desire that the country be part of the most developed 20 economies in the world by the year 2020 will continue to remain not a dream but a farce as long as the nation’s education system is not revived. I am of the view that it is high time for the Jonathan administration to set a new date because we can see very clearly that the possibilities that are open to Nigeria by the year 2020 is that of degeneration to a lower level than we are today.

It is simply a fallacy for anyone to think that Nigeria is on the way to success in view of the very poor state of education in the nation. A nation that cannot accommodate 25% of its qualified young people into tertiary institutions is a nation that is in crisis. For instance, more than 1.5 million young boys and girls sat for the University Matriculation Examination this year, out of the number, at least 750,000 of them will qualify to enter universities but the carrying capacity of the 122 universities nationwide is not up to 300, 000. That figure is estimation; it is certainly much more than that.

How can any nation that aspires to greatness be so nonchalant about the future of its younger ones? There is a serious disconnect between what the government says and what it does. That is why people are nursing the fear that the recently launched integration of the almajiri and western system of education may go the way of nomadic education and other similar schemes.

Let it be placed on record that what Nigeria needs is a structural adjustment in every facet of national life. A section or certain sections within the educational system cannot be corrected in isolation of others. The sectors need total overhaul if things are to move right.

Let us take the drama and rigmarole that we see and hear daily on national educational policy. I have argued time and again that the federal ministry of education has no business managing secondary and post secondary schools across the country. They left the most important issue of policy and standard for a lesser responsibility which other levels of government within the country can better handle. This is what the white man calls, pound foolish, and penny wise.

As I have said earlier, Nigeria is basically an illiterate society. Education is apparently the worst hit by the protracted lack of concern on the parts of those who ought to care. The basic foundation for the growth of any society is education and any society that relegates it to the background does so at very great expense.

As a student of power devolution, I am of the view that the time has come when the federal state should hands off the actual implementation of educational policies to the state and local government levels. What that means is that the other tiers of government’s share of the federal revenue will also increase. This is simply what fiscal federalism means and not control of resources by those areas where such resources are produced.

A survey around the nation’s universities for instance shows that most state universities are functioning more than the so-called federal universities because the center has so many responsibilities in its list and the implication is that it is unable to dispense such functions optimally. There is no gainsaying the fact that the situation will remain as it is as long as concerted efforts are not made to restructure the workings of government in the country.

Primary education has collapsed. Every day you hear of one intervention or the other. One policy following the other and yet the quality of the school has dropped below tolerable level and that is why the input into secondary school has been weak coupled with the fact that secondary schools themselves are unkempt, un-catered for and thus in dilapidated condition.

The products of these systems as weak as they are cannot be absorbed by the tertiary schools in the country and so what we have all over the place is social unrest manifesting in various ways and forms. I will not be tired of making reference to President Jonathan who said at a function in London not too long ago that he cannot establish any relationship between poverty and violence or criminality. I ponder at that presidential ignorance.

Soon after London, President Jonathan was at it again in Seoul, South Korea where he again blundered when asked about the prospects of investment in the country in view of the unrests. The president characteristically blundered his response by saying that the unrest in the country is only in one section of the country. The president could not tell his audience the magnitude of the section in relation to the rest of the country. The North is more than 6o% of the landmass and population of the entity called Nigeria. Could such a large chunk be considered by any sensible foreign investor as just a section?

The president and those who handle him have an uphill task ahead of them. If they cannot polish him to be the president of Nigeria, they must learn how to control his utterances and outburst at critical times and fora. No doubt Nigeria is in pains and will require concerted efforts to heal these worsening wounds.

We have no choice than to get our education right if we are to see the light of the day. Education is not critical but necessary for a people and nation to survive. So far, the nation’s educational system is in deep crisis and requires urgent and serious attention to be rectified for the good of all.