The Change We Need in Education

By

Dr. Abdussamad Umar Jibia

aujibia@gmail.com

For those of us who spent only five years in secondary school in my own part of the country, our school days were very nice times to remember. The period was shorter than what we have now, but the gains were more and the days even more beautiful.

There are better stories to tell as well. For example, from my primary one to form five my father never paid a dime as school fees. In addition, neither he nor anybody acting for him had to buy me a textbook. All my books were provided by the school at no cost to my parents. My teachers were employed by the Government and they were all qualified. In my primary school, only those with Grade II Teachers Certificate were recruited by the Local Education Authority to teach me. In my secondary school, the situation was even better. For instance, the people who taught me English and Mathematics in my first year had higher degrees in those fields. Where the Government could not find a highly qualified teacher for a particular subject in Nigeria, they will go to any part of the world to get one.

That is not all. As a boarding student in a rural secondary school, I was given three square meals with nothing missing. The food was enough and well-prepared. In addition to the food itself, we were given things like oranges, banana, groundnut and other refreshers. The school uniform I wore and the soap I used to wash it were given by the school. All these were done to me at no cost to my parents.

We were taught discipline as well. There was a time for everything and everything was done at the time set aside for it. When it was time for lessons, everyone must be in the class and pay attention. We all must eat at the time set aside for eating. When it was time to sleep, everyone must be in bed and lights switched off. Making noise after “lights out” as it was called attracted different punishments depending on the school Principal. In some cases, the father was invited to come and witness the punishment. We were taught neatness. There was a day in every week set aside for sanitary inspection with prizes given to the neatest house and neatest student.

The academic standard was very high. Common entrance examination was prepared by WAEC and after passing it the pupil had to go through oral interview to get admitted into secondary school. Those who failed at either stage accepted it in good faith and their parents would always find for them something to do or send them back to school to take the exams the second time. At the end of fifth year in our secondary schools we sat for SC/GCE examinations organised by WAEC. There was no other option and there was no cheating. Examination malpractice was unknown to us in this part of the country and it was a thing of shame for any young person to be associated with it. We didn’t know JAMB. We never had to register for it.

Alas! Suddenly, and like an earthquake, things began to turn upside down. One of the first and greatest harm done to our educational system was the scrapping of Grade II Teachers colleges. In the old good system of those days, pupils at the end of their primary schools were taken to different schools based on their potentials as assessed and decided by panels of seasoned teachers. It was at this level that future primary school teachers were picked and sent to Teachers colleges. The NCE of nowadays is not as good as the Grade II certificate of those days. In most cases, the young people that follow NCE programme now do so only after failing to get admission into Universities and polytechnics. The meaning of this is that it is people of lowest intelligence that teach our children in primary schools.

Unlike the old good system in which only those who passed a standard entrance examination and a competitive oral test proceeded to post-primary schools, nobody will agree to see his child having primary school leaving certificate or junior school certificate as their highest qualification. Every child must be a university graduate whether or not they are the right stuff for it. That is the philosophy of today’s parents. This has resulted in an avalanche of private schools and an explosion in the number of pupils in public schools. We now have a situation in which public money is used to fund schools that admit unqualified children who end up either as failures or holders of fake results which they obtain through examination malpractice.

Cheating in examination is now taught to post-primary school pupils as if it is part of the curricula. It has reached the level that the best schools are those whose proprietors know how best to connive with officials of examination bodies to award grades to their final year students.

The tale of the tertiary education sector is not any sweeter. Everyone is now allowed to set up a university if they have money to ‘start’. While in developing countries like Malaysia it is youth who do not have the requisite qualifications to go to public universities that enrol in private universities, reverse is the case in Nigeria.

Even the universities that are established by the Government, especially state governments, are not good enough. Many of our state universities are better described as unemployment factories. The programmes run in those places are mostly programmes that will not enable students to be absorbed by the private sector or stand on their feet upon graduation. Professional faculties like Medicine and Engineering that require a lot of investment to establish are missing in most of our state universities. Yet politicians continue to deceive gullible parents that they have established universities to educate their children.

Polytechnics that were originally established to provide middle level manpower in technical areas now run courses in Marketing and Banking. Even in technical areas, the contents and educators are not far from what obtains in the universities. Many Polytechnics are now headed by University lecturers with no iota of experience in the Polytechnic system but who are appointed as a reward of their contributions to the electoral success of some politicians or being close to them. That is why many unions have sprung up over the years agitating for equal status between products of Polytechnics and those of universities.

It is unfortunate that in an average of every four years our universities are closed down for a few months of ASUU strike. This has demoralized youth and parents, with many parents who can afford it sending their children abroad for degree programmes. The bitter fact, however, is that it is those strikes that have attracted the very little funding enjoyed by universities. For example, the Tertiary Education Trust fund (TETFUND) which has turned out to be the main financier of projects, research and development in our tertiary education sector is a product of ASUU strike. Successive governments have admitted that ASUU is a patriotic union which, unlike other trade unions, is genuinely concerned about the nation’s education sector and not just the condition of service of its members. Yet, the same Governments have always reneged on their agreements with ASUU.

Yes. TETFUND is only supposed to complement the regular funding of tertiary institutions from budget but it is now the mainstay for funding universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education. The budget mainly takes care of personnel cost plus a paltry overhead. As essential as staff development is to universities, neither federal nor state governments have a comprehensive programme for it apart from TETFUND. The scholarship scheme of the Federal ministry of education is used to sponsor children of politicians and senior Government functionaries to study abroad. Same can be said of the more transparent PTDF scholarship scheme.

Our universities now award honorary degrees to rich people of questionable sources of income in order to attract monetary donations from such people. Commercial programmes have become the order of the day in our tertiary institutions with quality sacrificed for revenue in many cases. Colleges of Education that are statutorily established to train teachers are now running commercial diploma programmes. All these are happening because the Government has abdicated from its responsibility of funding education.

In sum, the crisis in the education sector is pervasive and if the change agenda of Buhari administration is to apply to Education, every stratum of our educational system requires a complete overhaul. While the Government should continue to support primary education for all Nigerian children, use of public fund to support post-primary/post-basic education should only be limited to children with minimum aptitude to proceed to such level. This will decongest public secondary schools and enable proper teaching and learning. The current unwieldy nature of public schools, especially states-owned schools, does not warrant learning and it is a great disservice to our nation to continue with it. One way to effectively do this is by reviving vocational training centres where the other children can be trained to acquire skills.

Considering our earlier observations on some of the fundamental problems bedevilling the Polytechnic sector, it is worthwhile to follow the footsteps of countries that have abolished polytechnics. Our polytechnics have outlived their relevance and the best solution is to merge or convert them to universities as the case may be. Details of this must however be carefully worked out considering the fundamental differences in the administrative and academic structures of polytechnics and universities. Colleges of Education remain relevant and valuable if they restrict themselves to their mandate. Monotechnics may continue as long as they remain specialized and are adequately funded.

Early signals point to an impending showdown between ASUU and Buhari administration. The budgetary allocation to Education sector is a meagre eight percent contrary to extant ASUU-FGN agreement to progressively increase it to the UNESCO minimum of 26 percent. There are also other aspects of 2009 agreement that have been neglected by Government.  Are we ready for another ASUU strike?