It is a worrisome matter for me as a person when I look at the way education is run in Nigeria. For any society that wants to survive today's multifarious challenges that we have in the world today, a sound educational foundation for its youths is the beginning of the long-term solutions. Any national leadership that treats educational matters with a less than keen attention is courting disaster and setting that country up for a life-time of misery across the board.
Nations that have become world leaders in politics, economics and military power attained such feats through systematic and organized educational policies and carry them out critically over a period of time. These nations paid particular attention to what they wanted to see in the future and aligned their educational policy to groom people who would man the vision they have crafted in the future.
The USA, a little over 200 years ago was a vast mass of land with very small inhabitants. Today, that nation is a world leader and is populated from the Atlantic ocean end on their eastern coast to the Pacific ocean end on the western flank. The process of exploring the vast land by its founding leaders was propelled by the education of its people. These founding fathers had a great vision and the only way to realize that vision was to educate its people. Havard University, and all its great institutions were set up to produce future leaders. Today, very few modern day Presidents of the USA had nothing to do with Havard. That institution represents the ideals of the vision that the American founding leaders had for the nation.
It is a different ball game here in Nigeria. Our premier universities are all a shadow of themselves today. Most of the other universities are mere glorified primary schools... not even secondary! Infrastructure in the schools are dilapidated yet government votes billions of dollars annually to fund education. The endemic corruption in the system is a drain pipe for such billions coupled with the absence of a strong political will to see the laying of a solid educational foundation for the nation.
Besides, we have a school system that is now enmeshed in serious examination malpractice. This is a worse disease beyond the issues I have taken up above. Most examinations are doctored and not a reflection of the real intelligence and knowledge base of the students. Examination officials accept gratification from schools and students to allow them (the students and host schools in the case of secondary schools) commit malpractices just to get the students to pass. We have heard of secondary schools that are tagged "miracle centers" where you cannot fail but must pass. The national examination bodies of West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) officials are culpable in this respect.
The education authorities at the national level are pretending not to know about the rot of examination criminal activities in the system.
Statistically, over 1 million candidates apply to Nigerian Universities every year through the Joint Admission & Matriculation Examinations conducted by JAMB. Of the one million candidates, Nigerian Universities, numbering about 100+ can only admit about one third of that number. The educational system has no provision for the remaining 700,000 candidates who have no space assuming they are all qualified. These youths become a burden on society and their parents because they have no other system to fit into. Within a circle of another 1 year, the same number of 1 million are churned out by our secondary schools for the same admission requests. They join the other 700,000 who probably might take a re-seat to try their 'luck' out again. Within a few years, the proportional compounding number becomes a problem. Nobody has been talking about how to absorb these numbers.
Our school curriculum do not prepare our students for the contemporary world. For instance, my son is in Junior Secondary School. Recently, he said they introduced them to Pitman's Shorthand! I was wondering why, because in contemporary ICT world, no body needs the services of good old Stenographers! Why introduce a subject that has become obsolete? These coupled with the fact that most good schools now at the primary and secondary levels are run by private owners! The government schools have written-off buildings, collapsed infrastructures and almost non-existent staff and where they do exist, they do not meet required standards.
It is time the government of Nigeria pays particular attention to the educational sector before we are left behind by the rest of the world. It is a pity that non of our universities are listed amongst the first 100 in the world. For a nation aspiring to be listed as one of the most developed economies of some sorts in the year 2020, such a dream is like building a castle in the air if the human capital it is churning out is not able to compete with others around the world. The time for action is now!
