The dwindling quality of education in Nigeria is a cause for great concern and calls for a prompt action by all stakeholders to salvage the trend.
The current situation is to say the least, disheartening. A lot of computer science graduates of Nigeria?s tertiary institutions for instance, fail recruitment tests for their inability to switch on a PC. Some of them are obviously getting to touch such machines for the first time. Mass Communication graduates struggle to make simple and correct sentences. Engineering graduates who ought to have conducted researches in the course of their studies, culminating in inventions, get to touch most of the elementary engineering tools for the first time, after their graduation. This is a near hopeless situation for a country that targets to be one of the world?s leading economies by 2020. The implication of the existing trend is that even though there is a high graduate unemployment rate, most of the university and polytechnics graduates in Nigeria are not employable.
The loss of confidence in Nigeria?s education system is evident in the amount of money that Nigerians who can afford it, spend on their education in other countries. According to Exam Ethics International, a non-governmental organisation, Nigeria loses N1.5 trillion annually to education tourism. N160 billion of this amount is allegedly spent by Nigerian parents on their children and wards? education in Ghana alone whole N80 billion is spent for the same purpose in the United Kingdom.
President Goodluck Jonathan should be commended for allocating the highest budget to the education sector in the 2013 budget. However, there are other issues that require urgent attention. The emphasis on paper qualification and theoretical knowledge at the expense of competence or practical knowledge and entrepreneurial skills is a big challenge to the sector. The result is that most products of Nigeria?s tertiary institutions are mere certificate carriers and are not qualified to be addressed as university or polytechnic graduates. It is the combination of the ineffective education system with the decreasing white collar job opportunities that have further compounded the nation?s unemployment problem.
The diminishing quality of education in Nigeria is indeed, disturbing. Literacy is a human right recognised in the Universal Declaration of Rights and it goes beyond the mere skill of reading and writing. It is a process of transformation that empowers the individual, broadens the person?s critical thinking and provides such individual with the ability to act. The much emphasis on paper qualification has however encouraged fraudulent acquisition of highly graded certificates at the expense of true knowledge acquisition. Some students go to the extent of bribing lecturers or having sex with them to obtain high grades.
Government agencies and private organisations further endorse emphasis on paper qualification above competence and skill by discriminating between a polytechnic and a university graduate. This trend has to change. If Nigeria must move at the anticipated economic growth rate, then, the country must learn from great examples like China which derived the strength of its speedy economic development from skills acquisition and technical education. Giving more focus to the development of technical education and skills acquisition will also complement the targeted provision of regular power supply across the country and drastically, reduce unemployment rate.
Objectives of the Universal Basic Education Scheme (UBES), the 6-3-3-4 Senior Secondary School Education (SSCE) system and some other education policy initiatives have not been achieved. As a matter of fact, Nigeria has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. According to the United Nations? Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 775 million people are still considered non-literates and 85% live in 41 countries including Nigeria. About 40 million adults in Nigeria are illiterates and overall illiteracy rate is near 57%. Only about 500,000 people are reportedly enrolled in adult literacy classes nationwide and this translates to one out of every 80 illiterates. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Reports that there are 30 million primary school age children in Nigeria but estimated 10 million are not enrolled in school.
Government should therefore, demonstrate the needed seriousness in addressing the prevalent low literacy level and give more attention to the quality of education while working to widen access to primary education. Federal, state and local governments across Nigeria should wake up to their responsibilities in providing qualitative primary, secondary and tertiary education to citizens of Nigeria.
Parents also have a role to play in managing the negative impact of modern technology on their children?s academic performances. For instance, research shows that the habit of abbreviation and deliberate use of wrong spellings for sending text messages contributed to the high failures in English Language, recorded at the Senior Secondary School Examination (SSCE) and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Examinations in recent years. Twitter and face book fun chat sessions are also addictive and minimize study concentration levels for many students.
Both government and private owners of educational institutions should ensure that the required infrastructure for learning is adequately provided. The welfare of all categories of school teachers must equally be given adequate attention. This is one way of discouraging lecturers from yielding to the temptation to receive bribes or sleep with students in order to award them high scores, thereby leaving them in a state of intellectual emptiness.
There are other challenges facing Nigeria?s education sector such as inadequate funding, labour unrests and brain drain. Therefore, all efforts must be made by the federal and state governments to avoid unnecessary labour unrests that keep students of both federal and state tertiary institutions at home for long periods of time. In most cases, this poses a big distraction to the students who after leaving the academic community for too long a time to mingle with non-academically inclined peers, begin to lose interest in academics and academic activities. Besides, it makes education far more expensive for students, especially those on self sponsorship.
The federal character clause in Nigeria?s 1999 constitution should also be reviewed because it is one of the factors working against the quality of the nation?s education system. For instance, the federal character principle makes it difficult for most of the tertiary institutions to recruit fresh quality PHD holders as lecturers. Qualified applicants are rejected for some factor like state of origin. Professors and other categories of lecturers are also constantly retiring without replacements. These anomalies are really worrisome and all stakeholders must do something urgently.
ALBINUS CHIEDU
CEO, OUTPUT COMMUNICATIONS
29, ADENIYI JONES AVENUE
IKEJA, LAGOS
