More often, whenever we hear the word ‘education’ we tend to refer it as just attending different order of classes to obtain a certificate of various magnitudes.
However the word education is derived from the Latin word ‘Educare’ meaning “to raise”, “to bring up”, “to train”, “to rear”. We can see that the word is much broader than we think. Education is the systematic method of acquiring scientific, social and economical knowledge for the advancement of human character, code of conduct and self development.
Education is often described as the bedrock to development. This is factually and actually correct as evidently seen in the modern world. It is no coincidence that nations that value education are far more developed than those that do not.
Education, with all of its magnitude and vitality as described above, is in a state of comatose in the country and specifically Bauchi state.
Over trillion dollars has been spent as budgetary allocation for the educational sector with nothing to show but unqualified teachers, dilapidated structures, obsolete syllabuses and substandard graduates at each level.
Apart from corruption being the cancer worm that eats the fabrics of the sector, the present condition we found ourselves in can also be attributed to our consistent lack of institutionalisation of coherent and flexible policies.
Its apparent that our rotten system of education keeps producing high number of torpid graduates from tertiary institutions. While we acknowledge the fact that there are some exceptions in some quotas, it’s even more sad to realise that even them are left without employment.
However, the root cause of the lethargic performances at the tertiary level predates the level nor the secondary school level. The fundamental problem lies back at the Universal Basic Education (UBE) level. My reason is clear. There is no way you will start building a house from the roof. It all has to start from the Foundation.
As we all clamour for a change of mindset and perception of the citizens of this country as a whole, we deliberately opaque the fact that the problem is the apparent none existing love for our country. All our citizens seem to serve not for the aim of National development but for his/her self enrichment, indulgence and aggrandisement. This is why the atmosphere is filled up with greed and absence of unity of purpose.
The production of substandard graduates and the embarrassing lack of love for our country share one characteristic. Their root causes both lie on the UBE level. The plan below presents the state government the opportunity to shoot two birds with a single shot.
The state government will fetch those exceptional graduates sitting idle without a job. The graduates should then be subjected to a universal standard of teachers screening process under the supervision of the Ministry of education. The best among the applicants should then be employed on a temporary basis and their information will be documented in a secured automated database. With the growing need of teachers at the basic level, these selected graduates will be posted to different public schools under supervision of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
The employed graduates will be assigned different universally accepted subjects and syllabuses according to their area of specialisation to teach the pupils. History, patriotism and other related syllabuses will be introduced to impact the core values of love of country and state, unity, truthfulness and justice.
The graduates would be replaced in a continuous and circular manner to allow room for others from the database. Since the minimum period before the change of guard in the scheme will be one year, a beneficiary can be able to save enough to even further his studies.
By implementing the above, the government will get her two birds in cage in the form of providing employment for the graduates as well as nurturing a new generation of intelligent students with positive attributes.
Yusuf Ibrahim Baraza,
Mass Communication Department,
Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic,
Bauchi.
