The state of emergency in education

KWENU! Our culture, our future

The state of emergency in education

ACHO ORABUCHI

Dallas, Texas

Thursday, September 13, 2007

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be maintained.”

--James A. Garfield

“It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time -- for we are bound by that -- but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.”

--T.S. Eliot

“Education is both a tool of social justice as well as a fundamental driver of economic development.”

--Kevin Rudd

The above quotes not only capture the essence of education in a burgeoning democracy, but also its qualitative imperative in a global economy. Undeniably, education is one of the most important factors that not only sustain the culture, including the democratic principles, but also it empowers an individual and determines his/her worth in a competitive economy. However, education system in Nigeria is in a state of crisis.

Interestingly, it is understood that the basic right of all Nigerian children is basic education. The tenets of Universal Basic Education (UBE) program of the Federal Government hold that all Nigerian children of school age should acquire, at least, basic education. The constitution capaciously requires that primary education is compulsory and free. However, the government has dropped the ball by not fulfilling its obligations. This is evidenced by the fact that Nigeria has more dropout rate now at primary and secondary levels than ever before. Additionally, adult literacy continues to pose a problem to various administrations.

Sad still, many problems in Nigeria’s education system have not been addressed by those in charge. The fundamental problems that have been widely overlooked that have given rise to this phenomenon are our collective failure to teach students how and the reason to learn and our failure to provide the students with conducive environment enriched with meaningful and challenging curriculum. We have failed our students in many ways, especially in our inability to upgrade our system to the world standard. Equally critical is our collective attitude—the society’s emphasis on accumulating wealth. The Nigerian society has directly or indirectly taught our children that our respective communities values accumulation of money more than acquisition of knowledge and high skills. The consequence of this situation is twofold: lack of adequate knowledgebase and high skills to propel the national economy and the perennial cycle of poverty.

Our attitude toward education coupled with lack of government’s sustainable education policy has led the education system in shambles. Unfortunately, the staggering reality is education system in Nigeria has been increasingly decaying over the years without any substantive intervention by the policymakers who should have been perspicacious and honest in discerning and implementing programmatic remedies. And now the current administration has the daunting task of correcting years of neglect and anomaly in Nigerian education system. Nigeria’s failed education policy has resulted in certificates and transcripts from Nigerian universities being looked at with utmost disdain by other countries.

Though benighted Nigerian administrations have the capacity and resources to readily erect a world class education system that would be the envy of many countries, yet they continue to fail our children and the nation. Even when they tout the benefits of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) program, yet they continued to be pertinacious in stifling the entire education system. What a perversity!

Obviously, it is assumed that those who are at the corridor of power, particularly those who occupied the position of “Minister of Education”, do not realize that educational attainment and economic achievement are intertwined. Indeed, it is frightening.

I am recommending an urgent top-down review of educational structure, including revamping educational curriculum at primary, secondary, and university levels with total infusion of moral education in an effort to massively overhaul the system for optimum standard.

There should be more emphasis in increased funding of education and quality of teachers with equally strict accountability. The government should spend more on programs and decent salary for teachers. In the same token, teachers would be made to be more accountable in order to keep their job. Teachers should receive necessary training to perform their job and the training should be continuous. Also teachers should be evaluated based on student performance at primary and secondary levels. At the university level, they should be evaluated based on their teaching, research, and publication abilities. The education system should not have any room for mediocre teachers. Quality teacher should be rewarded and retained while ineffective teachers should leave the profession.

In Nigeria’s education system, there should be more local control of primary and secondary education with strict accountability parameters enforced by the state and federal governments. Each local education system must come up with meaningful accountable and measurable plans to address the problem of dropout and adult literacy. Compulsory education would be better enforced at the local level than at the state or federal level. Local control would seem to reduce the large bureaucracy that clogs the wheel of efficiency and effective implementation of programs. The state and federal governments should have palatable incentives for the most achieving local education systems.

Inasmuch as Nigeria pays equal attention to science and technology, research and development, and liberal arts meshed in high standards and rigorous curriculum, years of low educational quality in Nigeria would be over. To promote equal opportunity and rid the country of poverty, quality education would be at the heart of such effort. Perhaps more indicative of the economic value of education is in the high productivity and earning power of workers with quality education.

Invariably, state of emergency in any situation is lifted following corrective action. The same is true here. The appalling state of education in Nigeria could be a thing of the past if consistent and sustainable corrective measures are taken with long-term planning.