Half

Half -baked graduates, Whose Fault?

Aliyu Yusuf

The Nigerian education sector has over the years being facing serious problems of producing “half baked” graduates or what others termed to be “educated illiterates” in various fields of human endevour.

What inspired me to start thinking of writing about this debatable and disturbing phenomenon was the recent pronouncement by the executive chairman of the Kano State Universal Basic Education, Malam Yakubu Adamu that about 75% of the teachers in the state primary schools across the state are not qualified to teach.

So the bond of contention is that if the teachers at the alma mater were believed to be unqualified in training pupils that will one day find themselves in secondary schools and tertiary institutions, then what hope do you and I have that those pupils would have a sound foundation in their academic pursuit?.

Secondly for how long has the educational system being operating in that terrible mess and what realistic measures were put in place to bring to an end such human destruction problem?

This problem hinted by that gentleman, is one out of the multiple problems associated to the educational system and it is a single problem from one state out of the 36 states of the federation, what will it be in the ayes of the world if all the stake holders in the sector will voice out other factors militating against the development of the sector in their respective states.

One important thing we needs to properly understand here is that there is no way one can build a reliable structure on one-dimensional foundation, meaning that if a child lack a better training from the beginning of his studies it will be difficult for that child to cope with the challenges in his secondary school and tertiary institutions.

This in essence translates that the institutions will continue to produce graduates with low level of intelligence to handle the affairs of our respective societies and of course in different endevour including leadership, what positive reasoning or contributions will then be anticipated from those types of people who were haphazardly trained, in the development of the country?

The quandary of producing half baked graduates in the country in my opinion is multifaceted in that no single segment will be solely blamed for the total frustration in that direction, because if you look at it from the point of view of the students after completing the compulsory primary education, the first challenge is passing the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) popularly know as WAEC and the recently introduced National Examination Council Examination (NECO).

It is heart touching to reveal the level of disgrace in the conduct of those examinations even though I don’t have a statistics at hand to back my argument, but it is apparent to many who knew what is happening during the conduct of the examinations as malpractices has became the order of the day.

Obviously that the issue of examination malpractice cut across all the boarders of our states i.e. in the north, south and the east and with the contributions of the teachers, parents, some of the representatives of the examination bodies and the students themselves who are eager to pass their examinations at all cost with out realizing the what problem are they liable to find themselves at the long run.

It even when to the extent that some students who are so lazy and unproductive to loss confidence in passing the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination thereby employing the services of others to write the exams for them, as all they need is the distinctions an the credit scores on their results sheets, not knowing that they are doing more harm than good to their educational carriers.

Unfortunately however, even with the prevalence of the examination malpractices, yet the bodies responsible for setting the examinations continue to record massive failure from across the country though the greater percentage is from the north, not with standing even those in the neighborhood have perfected in their own ways of the menace.

In that regards also it was also observed that in some places parents were indulging in the attitude of entering in to negotiation with unpatriotic citizens to write exams for their children by paying that huge amount of money, instead of employing all the necessary measures that will help in boosting the IQ of their children to perform.

When the palavers of the secondary schools are “over”, then that of the tertiary institutions began right from the securing of admission in that despite the competing needs to fill the little available spaces in or universities, polytechnics, colleges of educations and their likes, some students are getting the admission not on merit but on certain factors, largely favoritism.

At the universities and other tertiary institutions when the lectures began there are also a lot of challenges, ranging from meeting the same half baked lecturers who follow the same process before getting there, to problems like that of victimization through sexual harassments, unnecessary frustration of students as well as lazy lecturers who cannot update their knowledge rather resorting to their university lecture notes which have being there for decades.

Those lectures are not a shame of themselves by a times telling their students that the system is getting rotten every day that was why they could only tender what they call “garbage in garbage” to them. I was privileged to hear that from one lecturer whom I respect, when I heard him talking about the “garbage in garbage out” I was about to shade tears because up dating knowledge now a days is not too difficult because even if the institutions cannot organize for training and retraining of the academic staff, the world has become a global village were the use of internet facilities has brought a lot of conveniences in solving much of our problems, be it academic or other wise.

Government on its part is not always helping the matter because of the lack of political will which affects the educational policies, for example the inconsistencies being suffered as a result of the change of governments, i.e. if Mr. A formulated a policy at the end of his tenure in office when Mr. B assumed the mantle of leadership such policies formulate by his predecessor may automatically be changed with out considering what consequences that may cause.

So had it been we have realistic policies long term planned policies backed by laws such inconsistencies might not be there.

One point I need to mention with regards to those policies is that previously before one is qualified to be a teacher, he must be in the possession of a minimum of grate II certificate which then is good qualification, subsequently another policy was formulated that one must have a National Certificate of Education (NCE).

At times it is not changing the policies that is the problem but the sincerity in the policy implementation, paving ways to the employment of unqualified teachers in our schools the ugly trend that will continue to live indelible predicament in our nation, states, communities and individual homes.

Another important negative factor is the in ability of the government to provide an enabling and conducive environment for learning in our schools despite the huge resources at its disposal. Imagine a class that designed to contain 40-50 students, but that class will be jam packed with between 100 to 120 students, for God sake how can both the teachers and the students be convenient in that type of situation?

So also in our respective universities the available lecture theatres are over stretched, a situation that will not the lecturer to put across what he is lecturing to the students and the end of the semester every student must write and pass an examination for him to be assessed.

I was one time at one of the training classes of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at edjeba estate in Warri of Delta, were the company is giving an intensive training to its graduate trainees; I was shocked when I saw the sophistication of their theater rooms. The room has a properly placed public address system, a projector, TV monitor and video as well as facilities for slide and film shows among other gadgets.

As some one who graduated form one of the Nigerian universities that also facing the problems of in sufficient lecture halls and theatres, I couldn’t resist asking one of the trainee that what are that facilities for? He answered me that they are provided to make learning convenient to the students.

My dear readers as I earlier mentioned, the challenges are so colossal to mention as they multi faceted, non the less there is no problem that is too difficult to either be prevented completely or curtail to a minimum level, if the authorities concerned and the stake holders are willing to put all hands on deck in x-raying the actual problems with a view to finding a lasting solutions to them no doubt tremendous success will be recorded.

Let’s go back to reality; the whole system of the Nigerian education required a total overhaul, in that there most be a perfect order of who will do and where so that things will be back to the proper scheme of things.

Those who are in the position to direct or rather made policies must find an alternative solutions to the deteriorating sector by coming up with a workable modus operandi of ensuring permanent changes, none the less, there must also be a total re-orientation for the pupils from the primary schools, student in secondary and tertiary institutions, the teachers, the government and the entire people in our societies, if really we want our educational system to be sound thereby producing “full baked graduates” that may be of pride not only to themselves and their families but to the nation at large.