By Chiedu Uche Okoye
The word education is an everyday word, which people use to communicate information and pieces of news to other people. Education like the word love is a shopsoiled word owing to the importance of education in a country. But what is education? The Longman Dictionary of contemporary English defines education as “the process by which your mind develops through learning at school.” And the Macmillian School Dictionary defines education in this way: «The activity of educating people in schools, colleges, and universities, and all the policies and arrangements concerning this.”
Education, as we know, is broadly divided into two categories namely, formal education and informal education. Informal education, which had existed in Africa before the colonial era was concerned with raising up children in accordance with their culture, norms, and worldviews and imparting knowledge about farming, hunting, cooking, and others to them. Then, their acquisition of informal education enabled them to function well in their society as they had imbibed the values and norms of their people.
On the other hand, the white people, who were our colonial masters, brought western or formal education to us. Western education, we all know, is the bedrock of national development in many countries. Over the centuries, people’s study of Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Mathematics, and other school subjects laid the foundation for human beings’ invention of automobiles, airplanes, refrigerators, computers, and others. Without human beings’ possession of scientific, biological, and mathematical knowledge, they could not have explored the outer spaces like the moon and mars, manufacture drugs for the treatment of diverse illnesses, and devise faster means of communication and transportation.
So it can be said that education is the bedrock of national development. Every technologically advanced and economically prosperous country in our today’s world has first rate universities and functional educational system. As to the proof of the existence of a nexus between functional school system and national development, we should take a critical look at such countries as America, Great Britain, Spain, Japan, Germany, and others. These countries have universities, which are centers of scientific and educational researches. Not surprisingly, scientists in these countries are pushing back the frontiers of knowledge in many areas.
Back home in Nigeria, in the First Republic, soon after we had become a politically independent country, our political leaders embarked on the implementation of programmes and policies, which improved the quality of education obtainable in Nigerian schools. Most of the First Republic politicians were well-educated. So, they placed much premium on the citizens’ acquisition of western education. For example, the implementation of free education policy, which was part of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s democratic socialism, helped many people of Yoruba descent to acquire university education.
And Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was a journalist and political scientist, played a significant role in the establishment of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Over the years, that university has continued to produce knowledgeable people, who are contributing their quotas for the development of Nigeria.
More so, then, universities in Nigeria could be likened to a Mecca to which students and scholars from other African countries flocked for acquisition of knowledge and certificates. That those first generation universities were the choices of non-Nigerian students underscored the high esteem in which they were held. Then, those schools were the bastion of educational and scientific researches and fine pedagogical traditions. In the past, those who passed through the crucibles of those schools were not found wanting in learning and character.
But with the passage of time, our schools have come to ruins owing to bad and corrupt political leaderships, which were our lot in the country. Our successive leaders, both the political leaders and military rulers, had failed to tackle our niggling educational issues. For example, over the years, in Nigeria, the past governments’ budgetary allocations for education did not meet the UNESCO stipulations.
Consequently, now, in Nigeria, the educational sector is in dire straits and comatose. Not only are public school buildings tumbledown, but also the welfare of teachers in public schools is utterly neglected. Consequently, they moonlight instead of teaching pupils and students during school hours. This prevailing situation is one of the reasons the quality of education obtainable in our public schools has nose-dived to an abysmally low-level.
Also worrisome is the fact that a great majority of Nigerians cannot afford to pay the schools fees which reputable private primary and secondary schools require their pupils and students to pay. The gates of those schools, which were built with the money of the commoners, are permanently shut against the children of the poor because their poor parents lack the financial wherewithal to send them to those schools. That is a troubling paradox as those faith based schools were built with donations and tithes given by the poor.
But our educational problems have continued to subsist and linger because our political leaders at state and national levels treat educational matters cavalierly. Has the ASUU – Federal Government faceoff not become a permanent feature in Nigeria with its resultant bad effects? The Federal Government’s failure to engage ASUU constructively and honour its own part of the pact and bargain has worsened the ASUU-Federal Government impasse.
But do our universities’ lecturers who make demands for improved welfare condition, proper funding of universities, and government’s fidelity and adherence to its pact with ASUU offer qualitative education to university students? The answer is a categorical no. As a result, our universities are no longer bastion of academic and scientific researches. And they are not places where the personalities of impressionable youths are remolded.
Here, some lascivious lecturers, who are sex predators, prey on helpless young female students. They trade high grade in their course for sex. And the fallout of the infestation of our universities with cultic activities is the brow-beating of lecturers for high grades by cultists.
The culmination of these things is the diminution of the worth of certificates issued by educational institutions in Nigeria. They are viewed with suspicion and disrespect by a majority of people.
A country, the leaders of which, toy with matters regarding education, cannot become a technologically advanced and economically prosperous nation- state. So, it behooves our leaders to imbibe the notion that education is critical to our country’s development. A stitch in time saves nine.
• Chiedu Uche Okoye writes from Obosi, Anambra State