By Sam
Azoka Onyechi
That a whole lot is wrong with education in Nigeria today is an understatement and a nation that denies education to its people denies them and their country a future; denies them civilization and optimum utilization of God-given human resource, which is a key factor in individual, entrepreneurial and national development. There is therefore urgent need to save Nigerian education from its current stupor before we drift permanently into the lonely and terrible abyss of ignorance that would probably lend credence to the aphorism that “where ignorance is bliss: it is folly to be wise”.
Education used to be for those who have professed the ability and the interest to read and write but these days, even parents in their misguided parental love are keen to pay bribe to get their lazy kids to “pass” exams; worse, teachers are even more keen to record good pass marks at WAEC or similar for the students they did not teach, so they write the answers and pass to their students at examinations; the school authorities themselves aspire to have astounding records of good performance at external examinations as this will bring good patronage of more students to their schools with proprietors smiling their way to the bank, so what do they do? They discuss with the external invigilators that their students are willing to play ball and with mutual consent, collect agreed sums of money per student for the invigilator, so he looks the other way when the mass cheating is being organized by the school principal or the proprietor himself.
There is therefore need for the national conference to discuss and ratify measures against politicizing education, making government to fund education and academic research directly and adequately, and interfere less in academic institutions and matters of academia such as appointment and removal of VCs; compelling our society through the legislature to encourage the making of laws aimed at challenging the influences of corruption and bribery in educational matters particularly and punishing same; getting the National Assembly to pass a bill with severe punishments for academic and exam malpractices, including aiding and abetting these, with such punishments as closure of schools that aid and abet exam malpractices and jail terms for officials who do so entrenched in such laws.
Nigeria must redesign her educational system by removing all forms of politicking from education and its administration in Nigeria; by making laws that separate education from all forms of manipulation or political influences; by creating huge budgetary allocation up to 40% of national budget through the legislature as educational fund that will not lend itself to government agents’ further approval processes; making laws criminalizing any attempt or support for any attempt that aims to lower educational standards in any form or guise; restoring hitherto pre-civil war international standards of education in Nigeria as per structure, syllabi. Infrastructure, admissions, teacher engagement, accreditation, board supervision; by reviving the teacher middle class status in society through proper and regular salaries and perks designed to make teaching a worthy profession; and other measures with similar motives of aiding revival of education in Nigeria, including free and compulsory education for Nigerian citizens up to Senior Secondary School level, establishment of a professionally oriented education commission and board with powers to oversee full implementation of all aspects of educational processes and practices, especially any form of corruption such as stealing or diverting of funds meant for education, etc.
The next challenge is to sending hawking professors to the laboratory. We should tackle this problem, which is gradually and steadily killing the future of Nigeria, at its holistic and general level and with a sincerity of purpose that is fast fading from Nigerian leadership. This if truly pursued will take the hawking professors off the street, where they are selling away their future and God-given intelligence as baked bread, to the research laboratory where they will be manipulating cassava by-products for global food supply from Nigeria. This is fact as so many of us, including most conference attendees are beneficiaries of standard and affordable education in this same Nigeria 30 to 50 years ago and would have otherwise been hawking bread on our streets or engaged in some other menial tasks generally undertaken by undeveloped intellect. To the National Conference attendees, I must ask, who would have known that you have something upstairs to give your nation if you did not have the opportunity given by this same country to go to school and develop yourself?
This is the question your conscience must answer before the sitting of this conference is over or you would indeed be hollow men masquerading as patriots, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, thinking nothing and doing nothing. This issue of reviving education should not and must not be our typical business as usual affair – it must haunt us, pervade us, terrorize us, even more than Boko Haram and should have pride of place in the hierarchy of issues being currently discussed, for the growth and stability as well as sustenance of tomorrow’s Nigeria. It is not an overstatement to assert that this is the greatest issue of importance in the ranking of the affairs of state on the agenda of the National Conference, for a properly educated and usefully engaged populace equals a civilized and progressive-minded nation.
Onyechi wrote from Lagos