Epidemic Corruption in our Educational Systems and the Future of Nigeria (I)

Balarabe Yushau

byushau@gmail.com

 

When people talk about corruption, usually they refer to public fund siphoned or misappropriated by civil servant, contractor, politician etc. Hardly do they think of the type of corruption that destroys the minds of our children and siphons the moral values of our society. I am talking about the monumental corruption that is taking place in our educational system. This type of corruption is more dangerous and more serious threat to the future of Nigeria. There is no doubt that educational institutions in any country are the industry in which future leaders, thinkers, politicians, teachers, workers and what have you are produced. In Nigeria, this industry has deteriorated to the extent that in place of being an agent of purifying the minds of our children to become useful members of our society, the industry is now diverting the mind of the children away from what education is all about. Therefore, if urgent care is not taken the future of the country is bleak as far as any meaningful development is concerned.

 

It has long been observed that our graduates are no more measure up to the standards of both internal and external evaluators. What has not been very clear in this discourse are among others: 1) the actual level of the deterioration at various levels of our educational systems, 2) the rate at which the attitude of our students is changing negatively towards education, 3) the rate at which parents are struggling hard - willingly and knowingly to help their children get grades and certificates devoid of the requisite knowledge, 4) the level of deterioration of the moral values of  the custodians of knowledge (teachers and lecturers) to the extent that they are now certifying that someone is knowledgeable while they know he is not, and 5) the level of government negligence to education and the role of that in the deterioration of the system. These are areas that need thorough investigation. The findings are certainly going to be revealing to all.

 

I was glad to find myself in Nigerian classroom after a long break. I have been teaching in other places. I am the type of person that could not think of doing any other thing apart from teaching, and got sick (teaching sickness) if I spend sometime without holding chalk or marker. I teach with passion. So, from the first day I started my classes; I was able to attract the attention of quite a number of students in a crowded classroom. However, my aim was much more than that; I was very much interested in inculcating a culture of independent learning to them as university students. Although the students acknowledged the fact that they were enjoying and benefiting from my teaching, it did not take me time to know that there was a problem. In the first place, not many students were coming to the office hours. For those that came, I noticed that they were extremely deficient in basic concepts and elementary calculations. I initially assumed that the lesson must be well understood as commented by many students. However, I was wrong, the result of the first semester examination was extremely bad What was wrong? I asked. I was worried because I know the quality teaching atmosphere I developed and the attentiveness of the student during these lessons. In fact, from the way the students answered the questions, I concluded that the students were generally deficient. Mathematics is a structured subject that needs to be built on sound foundation. However, discussing with some of my colleagues, I was amazed to know that the result was equally bad other courses.

 

Fortunately, I am not only a mathematics teacher, but also mathematics educator. Therefore, I could not let this go without finding some plausible reasons.  I must confess here that I did not conduct any scientific research yet, but the preliminary discussion I had with some students, parents and teachers gave me some general insight. Summarily, it can be attributed to the monumental corruption in our educational system. None of my findings is perhaps going to be astonishing news to most of the Nigerian students, parent, teachers and school administrators. It appears that each and every one of them has a personal experience to share regarding the corruption in our educational system. What is most surprising to me is the way people seem not to share my worry. I then concluded: "The danger of staying outside Nigeria for too long is the high chances of getting outdated from the reality of the Nigerian society, while the danger of staying in Nigeria for too long is the high chances of getting incorporated into the corruption bandwagon". Truly, I am outdated. However, I am obliged to tell the story before I got incorporated. I hope, together we can rethink the future of our children and the country.

 

In a nutshell, I come to believe that the deficiencies of our university students can easily be traceable to weak secondary education. And the weak secondary education can easily be attributed to endemic corruption that is taking place at that critical level of our educational system. The terminal secondary schools examinations (WAEC/NECO) are set to measure students' academic achievement at that decisive time of their life. Now people are using all kind of means possible to get "good" results in those exams – the end justifies the means. Without fear of contradiction one can say; most of the results of WAEC/NECO of most of the students these days are not a reflection of the students' intellectual capacity.

 

I lost a cousin in my first three days in Nigeria. A very close friend of his came for condolence. In the course of discussion, the boy told me that he was the one who wrote the WAEC exams of my cousin because my cousin had to travel. He was telling me this because my cousin told him that I was the one who paid for the exams fees. I was doubly shocked. How can someone write exam for another - for whatever reason, and how can this boy have the guts to tell me this directly with out any remorse in his face? I later got to know that it is a common practice.

 

Another common practice is having the exams papers some days before the exams. A 200-level student in one of the Nigerian universities told me that the situation is too bad. How bad? I pressed. He revealed that he had his exams papers a week before the exams. "I was amazed to find out that it was truly the exam on the exam day" he concluded. Interestingly, for good number of the students, getting question papers a day or two is not enough to make them prepare well for the exams. Many will have to come to the exam hall with full answered script. I was reliably told that in some places, they will have to write the answers on the board for the students to copy!

 

A senior teacher in one of the model secondary school in Abuja told me that good number of their students do not register WAEC/NECO with them,  because they are strict. They preferred to go to the suburb schools where they have many options on how they write their exams or who they want to write their exams for them. One teacher told me that he is no more reporting any exam malpractices after marking WAEC/NECO, because you will end up reporting everything all the time. One can see why large number of results are either cancelled or withheld every year. As I was writing this article, the results of five schools in my neighborhood along were withheld. And the reason is nothing more than rampant cheating. I have discussed with two affected students. Both acknowledged the fact that they were "helped" during the exams. What are they going to do? They told me that they were "gathering momentum" in collaboration with the school principals, and they were confident that their results will soon be released.

 

I raised the issue of "help" during examination with one very dedicated teacher I know. He told me that students now do not read because of this expected "help" from teachers. And if you do not give this kind of "help", you are considered as wicked, and will be disliked by the students and school authority. He told me that in the last exams three students came to his house in the night. What was it? He asked. "We have gotten the question paper". They answered. "Is there anything we have not covered in the class?" He asked. "No, only two small sub-questions", they answered. According to him, he sent them away, because the time they took to come to his house was more than enough to think and get the answers. Again, how could students have the guts to even come to this teacher with a leaked exams questions? I was told that most of the leaked questions are obtained from the teachers!

 

Last week I watched a comedy TV program, in which a whole class fainted during school examination - just because the teacher decided to change the exam questions in place of the one given to exam officer. I was reliably told that the drama was a true reflection of the happenings in our schools.

 

What I have so far reported here is the rampant examination malpractice that is currently taking place in our secondary schools. It is my intention to extend the argument by showing that the teachers, parents, examination supervisors, and school principals are also contributing directly and knowingly to these malpractices.

In the last article I narrated how rampant is exam malpractices in our secondary schools to the extent that each and every student I met have some personal experience to share on the subject. With all these happenings, one will ask where are the teachers, school principals, exams supervisors and the parents of the students. Interestingly, my preliminary findings indicated that they are all culpable. The principals are the ones organizing PR (public relation) for the supervisors so that they will see but pretend as if they did not. The principals are doing this so that the performance of their school is high. The "good" results give some good image of the school in terms of students' enrolment especially in private schools. Also, the promotion of the principals, especially in government schools depends in a way on the performance of the schools in these exams. Hardly will you get a school that is not involved in this practice. I was reliably told that among all schools in my town, several of which are religious based; only two schools are "strict". Interestingly, exams supervisors do not like to be posted to these schools. They consider it a kind of punishment akin to taking a custom officer from a border to a remote village in Kano. In other schools, a supervisor can get three times his salary in one "PR". You may ask; where are the schools getting this money? Simple; before the exams, the students were asked to bring some fixed amount from their parents. It may interest you to know that even my aunty who has not been to school knows exactly what this money is meant for. Why are they given? They want their children and wards to pass their examinations. Moreover, if you did not give others will, and your child will be at disadvantage. And now, this is the way, one parent concluded.

 

It should be noted that the leaked exams are coming from the exams body (WAEC/NECO). I was reliably told that if you need result without sitting for the exams you can get it from these exam bodies. Somebody told me that a lady came to look for admission for her sister, and was told that the sister could not be admitted because she has deficiency in English. The lady asked, is it only English? Do you need any other thing? And she went and brought it after two weeks.

 

Just think about it, this is a situation where parent, children, teachers, school administrators and exams supervisors are consciously involved in these malpractices. Going into the memory line, many people could not remember any of these practices three decades ago (70s) in most part of Nigeria. Most of present Nigerian leaders whom we are criticizing of corruption today were at that time (70s)  either in secondary school or university. In fact, the period (70s) was marked with a lot of radicalism, socialism and religious revivalism. Despite this ideological, spiritual and moral training at that critical time of their formative age, most of these leaders are now succumbed to the system. Then what do we expect from the children who are corrupt from childhood with full connivance of their parents and teachers? I am just imagining Nigeria in the next three decades when this crop of students will be the local government chairmen, legislatures, governors, presidents, etc.

 

It is from this class of secondary school students that our universities have to select their students. A set that is largely empty in terms of content, but full of confidence that they will soon graduate and get their certificates. A set that do not believe in the dictum - the secret of success is hard work, and they have abundant evidence to confirm that. A set which no longer believe that they can get anything on merit and the reality on the ground attest to that. When you try to preach to them those virtues, they will tell you directly or you can notice it from their body language saying - gone are the days!

 

Nonetheless, selecting these students into our universities is no more a straightforward exercises. Indeed, it is now a tug of war. It is true that the capacity of our universities is not more than 25% of the applicants. This means, there is high chance of getting many qualified applicants that will not get a place. However, the issue is why students with deficiency are getting admission, while the qualified ones are rejected. A 200-level student told me that his name came last year in the first list though he has deficiency in both math and English. He told me that he was able scale through the screening process also. An applicant this year told me that he did not see his name in the first list despite the fact that he has met all the requirements, but a name of a girl he knows with deficiency in English is in the list for the same program.

 

From the number of people that contacted me for admission last year, I come to understand that it is almost impossible to get admission these days by simply applying. Unfortunately, you must be a candidate of someone. I tried for three qualified candidates in three different universities and failed. In one attempt to assist a boy whom I was told was very hardworking and from humble family, with good results in UME and O-level. I visited the university twice. During the first visit I realized that the boy did a silly mistake of writing his post-UME exam number wrongly in the exams sheet. I helped in identifying the problem and sorting out the exam paper. The problem was rectifiable in less than 5 minutes. However, the boy could not get the admission despite all pressure and promise. He is now missing at least one year for no justifiable reason in addition to the financial implication. In the second attempt, my contact person, a senior lecturer, and former HOD, told me directly things have changed, and he cannot help. I immediately got the message. In the third attempt, it was for my cousin looking for admission in my university. I had to write to my VC directly telling him my relationship with the candidate. However, the name did not appear in the first list. I was reliably told that most likely the VC did not see my letter.  According to my sources, there are people around the VCs office that determine the request they think the VC is supposed to see or not. These are junior staff. They include their candidates and exclude all the names of the candidate they do not like. I was discussing the issue with my cousin who is currently in 200 – level. He just laughs and told me that the normal procedures I know are no more working. If I need 10 admissions he can get it for me if I am ready to understand. It is now a matter of money. To get admission into hotcake courses like medicine, pharmacy and law people spend hundred of thousands of naira. Even in normal courses in physical sciences, people spend not less that fifty thousand naira. This practice is rampant. It is much later I came to realized that in all the admission cases I submitted, I did not follow any with "rain fall", so the assumption is that I have collected money from those candidates, and do  not like to share with others! An Arab poet Mutanabbi has said the truth: "If the action of a person is bad, his thinking also got distorted". I now understand, unfortunately in a hard way.

 

As painful as the above experiences are to me, my interaction with the people concern made me to understand the rational behind post-UME exams. From what I have narrated regarding rampant exams malpractices, Nigerian universities are no longer considering WAEC/NECO and JAMB as a valid and reliable measure that can be used to predict students' future performance. Therefore, many universities are now developing local means of filtering their students. This questioned the statutory law that established JAMB in particular, and WAEC/NECO as a level academic achievement test. Now, the question is how reliable is the post-JAMB exam? If it is reliable, how long it will continue to be so. What is very clear to me is that most of our universities do not have the resources, the time, and expertise to set a reliable post-JAMB exam. The issue is much more than knowledge of the content. There are issues that have to do with measurement in a technical sense of the word. Therefore, this is not the way. The way is for us to correct the perceived problems in both WAEC/NECO and JAMB. Otherwise, we are just wasting time and creating opportunities for other corrupt people.

 

All these experiences are showing that the corrupt practices and tricks our students learn in secondary schools is not just enough to take them into our universities. They have to do more to get admission. It is my intention to argue in the next article that the educational corruption that is taking place in our universities is beyond comprehension. In fact, our universities are perfect environment where our children perfect art of corruption.

 

In the last two articles on this issue, I have narrated the rampant examination malpractices at the WAEC/NECO and JAMB. I noted that having the minimum requirement is no longer a guarantee that you are going to be admitted into our universities. Also, not having the minimum requirement does not mean you will not be admitted – if you know your way.

 

As a result of this carry-over of bad behaviors from secondary schools and admission process, students find it difficult to concentrate and study at the university level. I remember vividly that I was admitted into university through UME with clear weakness in mathematics – the subject I read. This is because; I attended teachers college where Arithmetic is offered in place of mathematics. My first year was terrible. I was in a class with students who did mathematics and additional mathematics. At that time I spent almost all my time either in class or library. It is now a history. I was able to do that perhaps due to the carry-over of reading culture I got from secondary school. However, students these days do not have this reading culture. In place of working hard and spending a lot of time in the library and in group discussion, now students device many different ways to survive in the system. Some of them get involve in cultism, while others use money and some beautiful girls use their body. This is well known practice to the extent that even President Musa Yar'adua was reported to have warned university lecturers to desist from dashing out grades for financial and sexual gains. Also, recently the minister of education Dr. Sam Egwu during his meeting with the committee of vice chancellors lamented the level of the deterioration of our morals and academic values in our university education. He observed that the public perception of our university is no longer a place of education. Rather, it is now a place of cultism, raping, kidnapping etc. He therefore, called on the VCs to work hard toward positive change. Otherwise, they should wait for their dismissal letter. As good as these calls are, they must be followed with action otherwise, they are nothing more than lip service.

 

To buttress this point, after marking the first semester exams, I had to visit the family of two students who happened to be in my neighborhood. The two brothers got ZERO in my exams. I told the senior brother that if care is not taking, the students will be withdrawn by the end of the session. The first thing that came out from the senior brother is; please do whatever is possible we are just ready for it. Yes, they (students) told me (brother) that we will need to go and see the teachers at the end of the semester. It took me over an hour preaching (on behalf of ICPC and EFCC) a need for the students to work hard in place of thinking of buying their grade. There is no way a building with shaky foundation will have an everlasting structure, I preached. I alternatively advised them to use the money for taking extra classes to cover for their deficiencies. I offered to give them extra classes of mathematics free of charge. They attended only two classes, and I never saw them again. Whenever they see me on the road they immediately dodge. These are student from humble family. They are supposed to work very hard for a better future. What then do we expect of those from rich family? I know it is not that easy for a mindset that is getting ready for financial negotiation for grade to suddenly change to working hard. It requires a lot of confidence building and hard work. In a nutshell, students' attitude toward learning these days is negative, and what they are looking for is more or less a short cut to get good grades and certificates without actually working for it.

 

On the other hand, the attitude of the lecturers towards academics is not helping matters. The successive strikes our universities experienced in the last two decades or so have turned away the minds of the lecturers away from the academics. In the early days of these strikes, the lecturers were thrown into confusion and redundancy. This is because most of them at that time were full time academicians, and did not know any other business apart from teaching and research. The unwise approach the government used to intimidate the lecturers to go back to classroom by stopping their salaries and throwing them out of their houses opened their eyes for an alternative way of surviving. Gradually, the lecturers were able to intrude into business sector. As a result, hardly will you now get a full time lecturer that does not have one or two other businesses running.

 

This has resulted into another pathetic attitude in the part of the lecturers, and that is missing classes with impunity. In a semester, not many lecturers are attending more that 50% of their classes. Quite a number attend far less than that. And there seems to be no checks and balances from either school administration or from ASUU to control this practice. This is an area I found fault with ASUU struggle. My belief is that as the government succumbs and adjusts the salaries to a reasonable amount, ASUU should put pressure on it members to do their job effectively; but that doesn't seems to be an area of ASUU's interest. For instance, when I was coming back to Nigeria, I could not get booking for the whole family except for a week after reporting date. I was really worried because I was coming from a system that even the one day of the registration we have to compensate it in some weekends. I made few calls to some of my colleagues; they all told me that I should not worry but just come at the most convenient time. I went directly to school the day I arrived. I was told that the time table was not even ready, and students were still doing registration. To cut the story short, the lectures started carelessly two weeks after my arrival. To my dismay, no compensation was made for the missed THREE weeks. In fact nobody (students, teachers or school administration) even talk about it. As a mater of fact, two weeks to the end of the semester, some lecturers told me that they were yet to attend any class. Interestingly, they were hopeful that they will be able to do something before the exams. I also attended a departmental meeting in which a majority vote of the lecturers indicated that they were ready to start exam in the coming week. However, I was reliably told that some lecturers who said they were ready did not attend any class at that time. Furthermore, it is now a common practice that students don't go back to school on the reporting week, because it is unofficially a lecture-free week.

 

Students are now so used to missing these classes to the extent that if you are like me who likes teaching, the students will be begging you to stop in the first hour of your two hours class. They do not seem to bother that they are not covering the syllabus. In other words, not knowing what they are supposed to know. No qualms as far as the exams is based on what the teacher is able to cover not on what he is suppose to cover. Even that students struggle to get the question papers of that narrow coverage. With this attitude, students are not fully engaged with homework and lecture that will keep them busy, or even have something to read at their free time. I taught two higher level undergraduate courses, and I know how deficient the students were in lower level courses as a result of these attitudes of both students and lecturers.

 

One other thing that is diverting the attention of the lecturers is the part-time teaching. You will find a lecturer teaching in three to five universities as a full time staff. And the distance between the schools is hundreds of kilometers. How do you think that this person can effectively carry out this teaching responsibility? In one of the school I visited, I was reliably told that one visiting professor attended the classes only once in the whole semester. And he was given his full salary, and students are done with that course. Some other time the part time teaching is in the same university but in a different program. In all these, no teaching in a real sense of the word is taking place. I know a department in one of the Nigerian universities that has only one permanent teaching staff, and his highest qualification is a Bachelors degree. All other teaching staff are these par-time teachers that you only see ones a while. And the program is surprisingly accredited by NUC

 

Another indicator of the gloomy future of our educational system is our post-graduate programs. The students coming to the post graduate program are graduates of our system. Therefore, they are coming to specialize in a program or courses that they have but weak foundation. Also, due to a lack of manpower, the lecturers taking these courses are either post graduate student themselves, ill-prepared PhD holders or a busy professor. None of these is mentally and psychologically ready to teach post graduate course and to remedy the students' undergraduate deficiencies. Furthermore, most of these students and the lecturers are having a lot of commitments different from academics. As a result, the quality of our post graduate program is extremely low. Teachers blame the students for lack of seriousness, and the students blame the lecturers of wickedness. At the end, the students compensate for his weakness by taking 'good care' of the lecturer and the lecturer compensate for his incompetency by passing the students regardless of the quality of the work. As we know, post graduate program is both social and academic experience. The issue now has political dimension in our system. A professor told me that PhD students these days after you do the research for them; they expect you to teach them how to defend the work.

 

The external examiners who are suppose to do the check and balance, are carefully selected from within the system. Therefore, they don't do a thorough job, perhaps due to lack of time and expertise. This is exhibited in the quality of the theses presented in partial fulfillment of the degree. Take a random sample of PhD theses, you will notice that most of them did not add anything to knowledge, rather exposes the deterioration of our educational systems. Not to talk of masters theses.  Quite a number of these PhDs are supervised by people who do not have any training, research contribution or in-depth knowledge in the area they are supervising. They are supervisor just because they have PhD in that subject! Take this as a challenge, pick all the lecturers that supervise up to five PhDs in our universities, I can assure you that majority of the supervisors could not defend large part of what they supervised. Students are just good at compiling other peoples' work, sometime with no citation. We have quite a number of cases, where both the student and the supervisors do not know what the thesis is actually all about. I come across one in which the student, the supervisor and external examiners do not know "anything" on what the "fancy" title is all about. And these ill-prepared PhD graduate will soon be surrounded by many other PhD students. Whom are we deceiving?

 

Furthermore, a sample look at our journals says a lot about the authors and the editors. The quality of the papers and the number of editorial mistakes is enough to scare you from reading. It is now more or less money generating venture, and "wash me, I wash you". People get their papers published by interchanging their papers with their friends in other universities. These are even the hardworking ones. Many could not even do that. No review in the real sense of the word is taking place. I submitted a paper to one of the "reputable" journals in the country. I was waiting for reviewers' comments when somebody told me that the paper was already published. This is despite all the technical and typographical errors in the paper. Some of the papers are just textbook material compile neatly. Most importantly, the research is not done with a view of adding something to knowledge, rather, just to satisfy the degree or promotion requirement.

 

I must add here that, the various academic debauchery narrated here should not be equated to lack of talent. We have many potential first class academicians by all standards. However, the system is making it impossible for them to even go close to their potential. Furthermore, despite all this, there are some lecturers albeit small in number, who still have some academic flavor; very decent and do their job effectively. Taking into cognizance of the decadence in the system, this people should serve as a shining example. But to who? The hard work is not appreciated by both the students and school administration. The students are looking at them as unnecessarily making life difficult for them by over working them and by being too strict in their exams. And the school administrations do not seem to have a means of rewarding them. At the same time their colleagues are getting promoted and richer in a Nigerian way!

 

 

I have narrated in the last three articles some corrupt practices in our educational system. With these practices so rampant, it is noted that our educational system is now playing a negative role. Rather than training our children to become good citizen of this country, the training is now towards inculcating bad behaviors to them. The main message I am trying to pass on to all is that these bad behaviors that our students are learning in our schools will certainly have a very serious ramification to their behavior after school. Therefore, as a lot of attention is given to financial corruption, much more attention is needed to a more dangerous corruption that is taking place in our education system – the bedrock of any meaningful development. None of the Seven Points Agenda or Vision 2020 of Mr. President is achievable in the next one hundred year if our education system has not been sanitized. I would therefore, like to conclude with some brainstorming and proposing possible ways to tackle the menace. In doing that I am neither perturbed with the saying "In Nigeria, every government came with the intension of fighting corruption, but at the end, it is always the corruption that is winning", nor with the kind of reward Ribadu is currently receiving.

 

If you see anybody proposing simple way to address this problem rest assured that he did not understand the gravity of the problem. The deterioration was gradual and over a long period of time, therefore, rebuilding will definitely require more time. First, we must understand that the corruption in our educational system is currently doing an immeasurable damage to the most important resources (mind of our children) of the country, and at the most critical time of their life. Therefore, an urgent, concerted and systematic effort is required to stop the practices, and then start to undo the damage so far done. To do this, the whole society needs to be reoriented morally, spiritual and socially. This will certainly required a dedication, sincerity of purpose, and political will from all political leaders - rank and file. If this is achieved, I am optimistic that other non political leaders will just follow suits.

 

It has been argued that the problem with Nigeria is insecurity. It is this insecurity that is making people concentrate more on maximizing personal gains at any given opportunity, so that the entity call Nigeria will not collapse with them at the other side of the bridge. With this attitude, we are now money hunters' nation and we do not seem to have any good agenda for the money except for self aggrandizement. It is only the political leadership that will develop the confidence of the people, and make them believe that Nigeria is not going to collapse as people are thinking. As a matter of fact, the chances are more that Nigeria will grow greater, and become prosperous for our children and great grand children. But that is if we change our attitude and work towards national development in place of personal development. Unfortunately, our attention and mindset now is not towards making Nigeria great, rather towards making our self great in a simplest way possible. This trend of looking for a quick way of making it must be addressed - as nothing good come so easy. Similarly, people are now too self-centered and very much ready to compromise national interest for their personal benefit. This selfish and self-centered attitude must be changed.

 

The good news is that our problem is NEVER lack of talent or moral training. We have more than enough talented young people who can make Nigeria of our dream. I was in a conference in the USA. I met a well known mathematician, when I told him that I was a Nigerian; he started to ask me about Ibadan, and some big Nigerian names in mathematics. He told me that some time back there was a journal in Ibadan that was highly respected internationally. He was curious to know where all the big names are now. I told him that the economic situation in the country has forced many academicians that worth their names out of the country. Now, to bring these experts back will require a lot sacrifice from the government and the experts. Similarly, training young ones to that level will require a lot of sacrifice from the government. So, our problem is not talent, but how to manage our talent. Amazingly, it is the same University of Ibadan that recently President Yar'adua was reported to have said is no more a university! And sentiment aside, Prof. Wole Soyinka is in support of that. What a shame for a nation with abundant talent.

 

Similarly, we are very religious people – at least externally. All that we need is to internalize the teaching of our religions and we will be complete human beings. I invigilated an examination in which a boy with big cross in his neck was sitting next to a girl that is fully covered in black hijab. It is surprising to find these two religiously looking people collaborating fully in examination malpractices. It is a very interesting discovery for me, and confirmed what I have since been highlighting - the contradictions in our religious teaching. Now exam malpractice is a unifying factor like a football where students forget about their religious, tribal and regional differences and collaborate in the malpractices.

 

The parent must understand the danger of encouraging their children directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously to get grades or certificate that do not belongs to them. As a religious country, we have abundant evidence in our scriptures to show that by doing this we are doing more damage to our children than helping them. And most importantly, we will have case to answer in the day of reckoning.

 

Students, right from kindergarten must be brainwashed and made to believe that they cannot go anywhere, individually or collectively with cheating in the examination. These exams are the foundation on which their future is built. Therefore, students must understand the long term danger of building a shaky foundation for their life. A concerted effort is needed with the aim of changing students' attitude toward learning in place of malpractices. We must make them believe that they have more than enough talent to do much better in their exams. However, it is difficult to preach that, if election riggers are finding themselves in our government houses - action speaks louder than voice. The moment political leaders start to leave by example, I am optimistic that many things will fall in place.

 

As for the custodian of knowledge, the effort should be toward bringing their minds to education. The government should try and make the salary reasonable, but we must understand that the issue is much more than salary increase. For instance, at the university level, despite all the adjustment in the salaries not much has change in terms of the attitude of the lecturers toward teaching and research.

 

Coming back to the educational systems, our teacher training is completely outdated. Looking critically into the issue as a mathematics educator, I can categorically say with no fear of contradiction that no teacher training is taking place at all. However, quality education depends largely on quality of the teachers. Our teacher training institutions are now producing teachers that lack knowledge of both content and pedagogy. I was involved in B.ED program. These are "trained" teachers in our primary and secondary schools. Surprisingly, their attitude towards education is not different from that of the secondary school students. What they are looking for is certificate. According to some of them, what they are learning has nothing to do with what they are teaching. So they are in school just to get certificate, which is necessary for their promotion to certain rank. These are the teachers. What do we expect from their students? Therefore, government should invest heavily on education with a view of producing qualitative teachers who are well trained in content, pedagogy and morals with good level of commitment in teaching business.

 

Sequel to my previous discussion on our universities, I am suggesting that our universities should stop given any post-graduate program. We should stop deceiving ourselves. We do not have the expertise and manpower to provide sufficient training for even our undergraduate programs not to talk about post-graduate program. Let us concentrate on the undergraduate program. This may appears as an insult to some people, but they should know that I am not talking about individual here, rather the system as a collective whole. Both the state and federal government should invest heavily on education. Potential students for post graduate studies should be sent abroad for their masters and PhD. This investment will yield a lot of profit in the near future. If you want to understand clearly what I am saying, take Malaysia as an example; just calculate how much money Nigerians are currently sending to Malaysia annually for education of our children. But this is because Malaysia has initially invested a lot of money for their children education in UK, USA, Australia, etc. Had we done the same, things could have been different today. Rather than sending huge amount of money to other countries that were not better than us forty years back; education could have been competing now with petrol as an income earner for the country. We could by now have a ministry of exporting manpower – nurses, doctors, teachers, and lecturers to all part of the world. Our unemployment rate and insecurity could have been far less.