The Problem Of Nigeria Education Sector As We Celebrate Independence

By Adejumo Kabir

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character is the goal of true education" - Martin Luther King Jr.

As Primary and Secondary Schools' students celebrate independence on Friday, 29th of September, 2017 in their respective schools (due to conventional holiday on Sunday), I ask myself whether their teachers make them understand the needful about Nigeria or they have been fed with the same story of: "you are the leaders of tomorrow".

It is important to note that ignorance is as a result illiteracy and if students are not made to understand the necessary, the country won't find it easy to survive.

What are the truths they (primary and secondary school students) need to know? They need to know at their tender age that poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, and corruption are norms in our country as every stakeholders in the educational sectors have collectively contributed to the collapsing state of education in Nigeria by their actions and inactions.

Another truth is that our constitution gives provision for adequate education. Article 18 of the 1999 constitution specifies the objective of education.

"18 (3) - Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy and to this end Government shall as and when practicable provide: (a) free compulsory and universal primary education, (b) free secondary education, (c) free university education and (d) free adult literacy program.

However, the problem here is connected to the clause that says: “Government shall as and when practicable.”  In a country where authorities are not interested in the future of the younger generation, the clause enables the governments to choose either not to fund education or to minimize funding for education related projects for the mere reason that it is not “practicable” due to the 'window' created by the constitution for government to escape in this regard.

Another illness that may not be cured easily is the country's hunt for paper qualification. This makes students go to any length to get a certificate they are not qualified to at the expense of being productive to the society after graduation.

Do we still have teachers that make students understand that schooling is beyond the four walls of the classroom and also did not only base on the honour you graduate with? The priority is how you are able to apply what you know which has a lot of things to do with your first class mentality than first class certificate.

Have these students been told that most of those who work in our ministries didn't get there through qualifications but through "god-motherism and fatherism? They need to be informed that JAMB has degenerated and has now reduced its cut off mark to 120 which means as a student with 25%, you are qualified for admission. Have they been taught that upon secondary school graduation, they will be admitted to higher institutions with less facilities, scarcity of qualified teachers, incessant strikes, military rule by management among others?

It is important to let the privileged kids attending private schools to know about the problem their counterparts in public primary and secondary schools face ranging from the irregular payments of teachers' salaries. How teachers have to go on strike before they get paid. Allow the students to share stories about teachers that are not dedicated. Inform them about how teachers spend more time attending to their businesses than they do in class. Some even use students for 'indirect hawking' as they send them from one staff to another to display their products like clothes, jewelries and other things.

After they learn all these, they will look into the face of their teachers and say: "Nigeria na waaa ".  Many of them will be prepared for the challenges ahead and also think about how to make NIGERIA a better place.

This is the bitter truth for according to John F. Kennedy: "The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth"

I hope I have been able to disseminate the truth!!!

Regards,
Adejumo Kabir, is a student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, a Campus Journalist and a Public Affairs Analyst

29th of September, 2017