Education and Yar’adua’s 7-point agenda
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- Written by Umar Bala
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As a result of ASUU’s quest to prevent tertiary education from going the way of both elementary and secondary education (basic education) in Nigeria, it has been stereotyped in a negative campaign as a self-serving, troublesome and greedy union which seems to be courting always for industrial disputes. Beyond the campaign of calumny against ASUU by government and its agents what have successive governments done to sustain or improve the state of education?
If we put pretensions aside we will clearly see at the moment that education does not exist at all in almost all government-owned basic schools; enrolling your child there is synonymous with the act of sacrificing their future. In those schools, usually the average number of teaching staff are four, mainly local language teacher (Hausa,Yoruba or igbo), religious teacher, history and commerce teachers. The presence of any core science teachers such as physics, chemistry and math teachers is usually accidental or as a result of several months or even years of reminders and lobbying by the heads of the schools concern. The conduciveness of the environment for teaching can only be imagined. During rainfall, the staff takes shelter in the principal’s or headmaster’s office and the entire students will gather in one or two classes that have the minimum amounts of leaks, some will have to continue to take shelter under a tree which serves also as their class. The classes also serve as habitat for different species of bats, rats or even snakes. In those schools, less than 30% of the students are given desks and chairs. In the classrooms the teachers are more interested in how to secure a motorcycle or fertilizer loan from their numerous creditors who collects more than half of the salary of the teachers each month before it even comes to their hand, and the same continues every month. They are more interested in thrift contribution (adashe) discussion than the syllabus or curriculum for teaching which they are vaguely aware of. The heads of those schools are usually the middlemen between the various loan givers and the teachers. The result of all of these is non-existence of any teaching activity at all and consequently the death of any semblance of education at those levels. How they make grades is anybody’s guess as now the depth of your pocket determines the grade of your child.
The leaders are more aware of these problems than anybody because they know how the system was during their time and what obtains abroad even in fellow African countries. Their children can at worse be found in the best and most expensive private schools in Kano, Abuja, Lagos or porthacourt. The trend nowadays is even to send their children for primary and secondary schools in neighboring African countries or to England or Malaysia. If we move to some notorious College of Education and to some extent some equally notorious Polytechnics the story is getting dirtier by the day, it’s now common to see a certificate holder of some of those schools without ever sitting for any exams because the examination system is so porous as to aid malpractice; lecturers sometimes negotiate price for grades with impunity. It is against this background that ASUU is striving so hard to prevent the rot from spreading to the ivory tower. From the body language of government it’s now more than ever ready and willing to swallow and completely kill university education to the level of cash and carry. Let me state here without equivocations, if ASUU members are to ignore this clarion call for increase funding of universities and halt this business as usual tactics of government then university education will deteriorate and conform with the national trend of complete breakdown of the education sector.
To parents, the short cut of paying for all the other level of education and expecting a decent university education will be over. The president, vice president, ministers, governors and other top government appointees who are actually involved in this face-off with ASUU are not stakeholders at all as not one of them has even a child in any of those universities; they don’t know what parents or the students feel. If the president is sincere, let him mandate the ministry of education to publish the list of all the schools their children attends from primary school to university for public consumption and the source of funding the education of those children. If we Nigerians, especially our leaders, will spare some thought they will understand that killing education at home and educating their children abroad will not help anybody because the social cataclysm that will follow can only be imagined. Our leaders at all level should understand that the tuition fees our students pay abroad yearly is enough to turn around our entire education system.
Bala writes from Umaru Musa Yar’adua University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Education and Yar’adua’s 7-point agenda
Category: Comments Written by Umar Bala Hits: 3689
As a result of ASUU’s quest to prevent tertiary education from going the way of both elementary and secondary education (basic education) in Nigeria, it has been stereotyped in a negative campaign as a self-serving, troublesome and greedy union which seems to be courting always for industrial disputes. Beyond the campaign of calumny against ASUU by government and its agents what have successive governments done to sustain or improve the state of education?
If we put pretensions aside we will clearly see at the moment that education does not exist at all in almost all government-owned basic schools; enrolling your child there is synonymous with the act of sacrificing their future. In those schools, usually the average number of teaching staff are four, mainly local language teacher (Hausa,Yoruba or igbo), religious teacher, history and commerce teachers. The presence of any core science teachers such as physics, chemistry and math teachers is usually accidental or as a result of several months or even years of reminders and lobbying by the heads of the schools concern. The conduciveness of the environment for teaching can only be imagined. During rainfall, the staff takes shelter in the principal’s or headmaster’s office and the entire students will gather in one or two classes that have the minimum amounts of leaks, some will have to continue to take shelter under a tree which serves also as their class. The classes also serve as habitat for different species of bats, rats or even snakes. In those schools, less than 30% of the students are given desks and chairs. In the classrooms the teachers are more interested in how to secure a motorcycle or fertilizer loan from their numerous creditors who collects more than half of the salary of the teachers each month before it even comes to their hand, and the same continues every month. They are more interested in thrift contribution (adashe) discussion than the syllabus or curriculum for teaching which they are vaguely aware of. The heads of those schools are usually the middlemen between the various loan givers and the teachers. The result of all of these is non-existence of any teaching activity at all and consequently the death of any semblance of education at those levels. How they make grades is anybody’s guess as now the depth of your pocket determines the grade of your child.
The leaders are more aware of these problems than anybody because they know how the system was during their time and what obtains abroad even in fellow African countries. Their children can at worse be found in the best and most expensive private schools in Kano, Abuja, Lagos or porthacourt. The trend nowadays is even to send their children for primary and secondary schools in neighboring African countries or to England or Malaysia. If we move to some notorious College of Education and to some extent some equally notorious Polytechnics the story is getting dirtier by the day, it’s now common to see a certificate holder of some of those schools without ever sitting for any exams because the examination system is so porous as to aid malpractice; lecturers sometimes negotiate price for grades with impunity. It is against this background that ASUU is striving so hard to prevent the rot from spreading to the ivory tower. From the body language of government it’s now more than ever ready and willing to swallow and completely kill university education to the level of cash and carry. Let me state here without equivocations, if ASUU members are to ignore this clarion call for increase funding of universities and halt this business as usual tactics of government then university education will deteriorate and conform with the national trend of complete breakdown of the education sector.
To parents, the short cut of paying for all the other level of education and expecting a decent university education will be over. The president, vice president, ministers, governors and other top government appointees who are actually involved in this face-off with ASUU are not stakeholders at all as not one of them has even a child in any of those universities; they don’t know what parents or the students feel. If the president is sincere, let him mandate the ministry of education to publish the list of all the schools their children attends from primary school to university for public consumption and the source of funding the education of those children. If we Nigerians, especially our leaders, will spare some thought they will understand that killing education at home and educating their children abroad will not help anybody because the social cataclysm that will follow can only be imagined. Our leaders at all level should understand that the tuition fees our students pay abroad yearly is enough to turn around our entire education system.
Bala writes from Umaru Musa Yar’adua University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.