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INTRODUCTION
The last installment of this intervention examined the range of factors behind the decline in education, as well as their causes; followed by some recommended solutions. This week’s treatise continues with same theme by looking at the roles of government and other stakeholders, including the regulatory frameworks. Enjoy.
Government and the regulatory framework solutions by experts (continues)
According to the authoritative world body, UNICEF, “we must take a close look at what is happening to our children in Nigeria and the opportunities they are missing out on when they lack education. We need to look towards communities – leaders, parents, teachers and caregivers – and, together, find the best strategies to ensure that all children enroll into school, have access to continuous learning and ensure they emerge with quality skills that equip them for a prosperous future. We need to especially ensure that girls have access to learning – so they can receive an education that will begin to address issues of gender inequality. All girls have much to offer to find solutions to Nigeria’s challenges – and we have to nurture their creativity and innovation. We also need to ensure that children are safe when they are in school – no child should be afraid their school might be attacked or that they will be kidnapped. And no parent should be fear sending their children to school . . . Nigeria’s education system can be transformed through adequate funding to ensure schools are safe, they application of gender – responsive policies, including recruitment of female teachers and improved facilities for girls, the creation of multiple and flexible learning pathways for students, such as digital and transferable skills learning, the integration of foundational numeracy and literacy in Quranic schools; and teacher training in the latest methodologies”.
I cannot agree more.
Solutions through collaboration between the government, the people and all stakeholders
To address the wrong attitudes and choices of the direct stakeholders in the educational sector, i.e., the Government, the people, teachers, lecturers, parents and students, Omebe and Omebe (Ibid) have offered some suggestions which I fully subscribe to. I have also offered mine in this piece. I will therefore deal with them specifically and seriatim.
Government’s direct intervention necessary
The first step towards having a lasting solution lies squarely in the hands of the government, which must quickly adopt certain strategies to restructure and save the sector from totally collapsing. The government at all levels must be seen to be genuinely committed to delivering of a template for a competitive standard of education across the country, vis-a-vis other countries of the world. The government must spear-head the right attitudinal disposition to get the desired results.
Introduction of a stronger legal framework
Introduction of a stronger legal and instrumental framework beyond the present anti-corruption agencies such as the EFCC, ICPC and Police, with stronger enforcement and punishment regimes there must be put in place institutional mechanisms for frontally dealing with corruption, with provision for remedies, compensation, restitution for people whose rights have been abused. The present anti-corruption agencies must be heavily resourced and incentivized for optimal performance.
I. Enforcement of existing laws that affect education
Security agencies must enforce all relevant laws, such as the Child Rights Act, 2003, which enjoins the Government to provide free compulsory universal primary education, free university education and free adult literacy programmes; as well as the Universal Basic Education Act, 2004, which also enjoins the compulsory education of children of school-age. This accord with section 15 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. Regrettably, many States in Nigeria are yet to domesticate and internalize the Child Rights Act of 2003.
II. Targeting disadvantaged children
Implementation of policies that target disadvantaged children from poor families and rural areas, such as almajaris, Motor Park touts and girls, especially from the Northern parts of the country.
III. Investing in education through adequate funding
Adequate funding with good management will provide high-quality education in Nigeria. Adequate funds must be provided for renovation of schools and other learning institutions, acquiring quality training facilities. Research grants, decent teachers’ salaries, emoluments, housing and general welfare, including provision for health must be urgently tackled. It has been found that investment in education pays off eventually. Economists found in 2008 that investing in education increases the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), thus impacting positivity on the country’s overall economic and social health. Education improves income distribution, raises people’s productivity, promotes entrepreneurship and leads to technological development. Heavy investment in this therefore a sine qua non.
With the Federal Government of Nigeria controlling mineral resources, taking a princely sum of 52.68%, and the State governments taking 26.72% of our derivation formula allocation (S. 162 of the 1999 Constitution), there is no reason why one single behemoth and over pampered federal government, and the 36 States cannot take over 80% of Nigeria’s educational requirements. After all, the remaining 20.60% allocated to LGAs is for the entire 774 LGAs in Nigeria, with most of the funds waylaid and mopped up at source by greedy State governments. This leaves the LGAs barely enough resources to pay salary to their workforce. The result is that a tier of government that is supposedly closest to the people cannot even construct mere culverts and gutters, let alone dispensaries and skills acquisition centres.
IV. Necessity of implementing a progressive tax code
A progressive tax code means that people and corporations that earn higher income pay more. This means that taxes increase along with incomes. By taxing wealthy citizens and big corporations, governments – both federal, states and LGAs – could boost our public education system. The political will appears lacking as the elites who control the economic levers are unyielding. The citizenry and the civil society must therefore be engaged in fiercely demanding that the wealthy in our society invests in its children, students, teachers and their future.
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V. Open up new vistas for dropouts
Many youths drop out of their primary school education (UNESCO). Majority of these are young men and women who have taken to crimes of prostitution, armed banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, internet scam, advance fee fraud (419), etc.
VI. Attitudinal change
Serious and deliberate attitudinal change of all by dispensing with negative, anti-social tendencies; abandoning vice and embracing such societal virtues as honesty, integrity, hard work, dignity, patriotism and respect for elders, customs, culture and traditions. There is the need to completely re-set the mindset of children and the youth psychologically, mentally, physically and emotionally, to embrace a new dawn.
The culture of “get-rich-quick” must be jettisoned. Never again should front pew in churches and front rolls of mats be reserved for Christian and Moslems in churches and mosques, respectively. National honours and honorary doctorate degrees must never again be accorded these rogue members of the society who steal our common patrimony blind.
VII. Wrong to put round pegs in square holes
Capable persons to be appointed as Minister and Commissioner of education. Their appointments should never again based on politics of prebendalism, cronyism, sectionalism, and favouritism, but on what they are capable of. Nigeria’s educational system fares better in the hands of professionals and expert Ministers and Commissioners, rather than in the hands of politicians who see everything as medium to play politics and embezzle money. It will be recalled that when Professor Jubril Aminu was Minister of Education in 1985, he adopted progressive steps to re-engineer our ailing educational system. It was during his tenure that the 6-3-3-4 educational system was introduced. He also introduced nomadic education for the Fulanis who are always on the road, walking with their cattle. Whatever happened to the Al majiri schools built by President Goodluck Jonathan. How do you put a Journalist and Accountant as Minister of Education, where there are several qualified Educationist and Professors? Surely, such an appointment can only be a round peg in a square hole!
Another good example of an expert minister of education is Professor Sam Egwu. During his administration, he entered into a pact with ASUU (Academic staff union of universities that has been on strike for 9 months and still counting), providing conditions of service, funding of tertiary institutions, autonomy of universities and means and payment of lecturers. This is one of the pacts that has always caused needless rock us as successive administrations have refused to fulfill terms of the pact on account of alleged paucity of resources and inadequate funds.
Professor Babatunde Fafunwa, appointed in 1990, also notched up significant millages during his time. He it was who introduced education that uses our indigenous languages. This was perhaps one of the first of such initiatives in Africa, since the lingual franca or language that was then used in schools was English.
VIII. Wiping out corruption in ministries and regulatory bodies
We must all rise up and tackle the serious canthernorm of corruption in education ministries and regulatory bodies. We must fiercely combat exam malpractices through the joint efforts of the government and examination regulatory bodies.
IX. Review of teaching curricula
The teaching curriculum of our schools require total overhaul, review and updating. It must be based more on practical research. A country that surprisingly deletes history from its curricula is asking for trouble. History was yanked off Nigerian schools in 2009, allegedly because students avoided the subject; graduates did not have job prospects; and teachers were scarce. Yet, history engages the present with the past; how cultures remember events; and how these events are presented to generations yet unborn. Surely, today is the tomorrow we mentioned yesterday. This is calling on the governments at all levels to immediately bring history back to our curricula.
X. Stop commercialization of education
Due to paucity of funds and systematic corruption, schools are learning to seek quicker for ways of funding. This has led to astronomical increase on school fees. It has thus gone beyond the reach of the poor people to afford. Commercialization of schools has become the vogue. Many others, especially public schools have been neglected. They are in a poor decrepit and miserable states. Poor infrastructures and dilapidated buildings adorn the land scopes of schools. Continuing this commercialization of education will finally kill any available opportunity for schooling for the poor and average people in the society. The poor will continue to be more ignorant while the children of the rich will continue to be better educated. Money spent on wasteful expenditure should be channeled towards funding schools and renovating the buildings. Reading materials, modern lab equipment which are needed for running the schools should be procured and provided by the governments and wealthy people, to lift our education out of its present doldrums.
(To be continued).
Thought for the week
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught”.
(Oscar Wilde).
