In the 15 years of democracy, and 54 years of attainment of nationhood, the search and dream of the country to evolve a functional education system that will leapfrog the sector and rank the country among the best in the comity of developed economies, have remained elusive.
Despite efforts by successive government since 1999 at galvanising and setting the education sector, the fulcrum of national development, on the path of growth, have absolutely yielded no fruitful result.
No wonder, it has been a sorry tale of acute underfunding, poor infrastructure and dearth of facilities, obsolete and lack of equipment for research, shortage of qualified teachers at all levels, poor teaching and learning environment in most schools, leading to rapidly sliding fortune of the sector.
Besides, with the startling revelation of dwindling school enrolment with about 10.5 million Nigerian children of school age out-of-school, rising illiteracy rate, and the recent Boko Haram insurgency, that has totally grounded education in some northern parts of the country, Nigeria has nothing to show for its education sector.
Also stagnating the system are inadequate admission spaces in tertiary institutions, whereby less that 20 per cent of millions of youths aspiring for higher education yearly could secure admission; mass failure in the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME); examinational malpractice; poor library and Information Technology facilities; incessant strikes; cultism; poor and welfare of teachers, as well as lack of political will on the part of the government at all levels to fix the ailing sector.
More worrisome is that despite the huge recourses so far invested in the sector by Federal Government in the past 14 years, which is running to over N2 trillion, the country has nothing to show for it.
To this end, key stakeholders in the system, especially parents, guardians and students are expressing concern that government at the federal and state levels are slacking in their approach in taking bold steps that will put the comatose and sliding education system on the path of reckoning.
Today, the story of the nation’s education sector development from primary and secondary schools to higher institutions is that of gross neglect, stagnation and regret. Nigerians are not happy that the country which founded Yaba College of Technology and the University of Ibadan in 1948, and today has about 130 universities (46 federal, 37 state and 50 private); 76 polytechnics (public and private); 29 colleges of education; 159 technical colleges and several thousands of primary and secondary schools, and that 54 years after independence the government is yet to evolve a strong education sector that will bail the country out of its socio-economic and technological woods.
Despite various failed attempts by the government, including the 1969 National Curriculum Conference, organised to design the objectives and philosophies of education and pave way for the development of a national policy on education; 1973 conference of a consortium of experts and stakeholders to leapfrog the nation to rapid industrial growth and development, the conference which came out with a new document that formed the country’s first National Policy on Education, which began in 1977, has failed to serve as the pathway to the delivery, administration and management of education in the country.
This policy failed to marshal the desired goals due to various inclement and unfavourable policies ranging from catchment area, federal character, educationally disadvantaged and advantaged as well as state of origin in the disbursement of funds, allocation of resources, admission process and appointments introduced into the nation’s education system.
Faced with the palpable fear of poor education system, the then Western and Northern regional governments in the 50s came up with different policies on education. While in the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, then Premier of the Region introduced the Universal Primary Education (UPE), which was followed by the Eastern Region by Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe.
The policy brought significant relief to the regions in terms of education development. The forceful take-over of primary and secondary schools founded by missions and some private individuals by the Second Republic government, especially in the South-West, to pave the way for the implementation of the UPE, was another turning point in the educational life of the country, which the nation was grappling for till the introduction of democracy in 1999, when some state governments, especially Lagos State returned such schools to their owners.
Determined to bring out the nation’s ailing education sector from it woods, the Federal Government in 1999, under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, however, took a major step with the relaunch of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) in which N144.7 billion had been spent between 2009 and 2013, apart from N113.507 billion spent in the early stage of the programme.
Another giant stride was the resuscitation of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in 2002 to provide access to university education through distance learning. In its move to address the problem of space in our universities to meet the yearly teeming admission seekers, and to massage the ego of some geo-political zones, the Federal Government in the last three years established no fewer than nine federal universities, across geo-political zones without existing federal universities.
But, despite the introduction of UBE, NOUN and establishment of the nine federal universities, all these initiatives have failed to yield the desired goal of addressing the over-subscription of university education, and reduce the rising figure of out-ofschool children, which UNESCO puts at 10.5 million Nigerian children.
Between 1999 and 2014, the Federal Government has licensed 50 private universities, established and many Almajiri schools, while some state governments have also established universities for their states, all in attempt to create more access to education at all levels. On the budgetary allocation, the government between 1999 to date set aside between 5.09 and 13 per cent to the sector, but which is still far from the 26 per cent stipulated by the UNESCO for a country which wants to do well in its education sector.
But, for whatever percentage the government has allocated to the sector in the last 14 years, stakeholders described it as a quantum of budget, which has failed to address the quality need of the institutions in terms of what the budget could achieve in the areas of infrastructural development. Presently, the nation’s polytechnics and colleges of education have been shut for over 10 months without any concrete move from the government to resolve the crisis and bring back the institutions to the mainstream.
The Academic staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, and its Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU counterpart, are fighting poor funding, lack of facilities for teaching and research, inadequate admission spaces, and undue interference in the management of higher institutions by the government, a situation the country has been struggling with over the years without any tangible solution in sight.
Only last year, the Nigerian universities system was closed following the indefinite nationwide strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which kept the striking lecturers and their students away from the classrooms and laboratories for over six years.
Several universities are in a hurry to increase fees in their institutions without recourse to the socio-economic well-being of the people, whose monthly minimum wage is N18,000.
At the just concluded 20th Nigerian Economic Summit, on Roadmap to Sustainable Education System, and with the theme: “Transforming Education through Partnerships for Global Competitiveness,” stakeholders expressed worries over the myriad of problems confronting Nigeria’s education system.
The summit underscored the required urgent surgery that must be performed on nation’s education sector, if it must fit into the 21st Century projection for achieving the Education For All (EFA) goal and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the government had openly agreed that the country could not meet, given the prevailing challenges.
However, the yet to be released over 230 abducted school girls of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State, killing and maiming of students and teachers and burning of schools in the North-Eastern part of the country by the Boko Haram Islamic sect, is an albatross in the quest to build a virile education sector.
But the Supervising Minister of Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike, deferred in the area of funding of the system, saying the government was not deficient in the funding of the education sector, as stated by stakeholders. Reeling out figures and statistics, the Minister revealed that between 2009 and 2013, the Federal Government has invested N144.7 billion in the basic education sub-sector alone, while since 2005, the FG had dedicated dedicated two per cent of its education vote as assistance to the states.
At the level of tertiary institution, the government, he noted is also intervening through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) allocation, under which it has allocated N268.484 billion to universities of which N233.33 billion had so far been accessed. For the polytechnics, N129.33 billion had also been allocated, out of which N116.99 bn had been accessed, while for colleges of education, Wike pointed out that the Federal Government through TETFund had released N124.38 billion to the sub-sector.
“Of this amount, N106.25 billion was accessed by the colleges, thereby reducing the presence of the Federal Government in the sector,” the minister added. Former Education Minister, Dr. Oby Ezekwesilsi expressed dismay that the nation’s education sector was performing poorly despite increase in public and private sector funding. While acknowledging the importance of funding to the sector, Ezekwesili traced the most critical challenges in the system to governance and accountability processes.
Therefore, in his views, Prof. Dipo Kolawole, former Vice- Chancellor of Ekiti State University, who is currently at the Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), bemoaned the level of underfunding of the education sector, saying the government should evolve political will that will ensure proper funding of the sector.
While attributing the sliding fortune of education system to what he described as ‘gross inadequate funding’, he said this resulted in lack of functional libraries, poorly equipped laboratories, shortage of research equipment to translate university goals, as well as shortage of learning spaces.
The former Vice-Chancellor, who blamed undue interference and politicking in university management by government and proprietors of private universities, where he said the level of stability is in question, however advised on the need for universities to have endurable and uniform programmes and policies that will guide them to have universal relevance.
To Prof. Ademola Onifade, Director of Centre for Environment and Science Education, Lagos State University (LASU), Nigerian education sector over the years has not made any appreciable progress in terms growth and sectoral development.
“The country at every level of governance has been battling with the same problems of education over the years. It has been the problem of poor funding, lack of admission spaces in higher institutions, poor teachers’ remuneration and welfare, dearth of facilities.
You can go on and on and on. It is a story of woes and government has refused to tackle these problems head long only for the country to continue to struggle with these problems every year,” he said.
For instance, Onifade noted that the problem of admission space is yet to be addressed, saying over a million candidates write the UTME yearly but the less than 350,000 are admitted. His words: “It has been like this over the years, but it has not been resolved. What of the issue of shortage and unqualified teachers in our primary and secondary schools, has it been resolved. Not at all and we have continued to struggle with it over the years without solution.
Let us consider teachers welfare and remuneration; it is zero and we want quality education. That cannot happen because government is shying away from its responsibility. I don’t know why the government cannot take teachers’ welfare seriously if it wants to move the system forward.”
To move the system forward, Onifade explained that education from primary to secondary schools should be free. On funding, the don hinted that with the underfunding the government is joking with the future of the country, even as he accused the government of paying lip service to education development.
“Now, the argument of the government is that it is investing huge amount in the sector, though it looks quantum, but in actual fact what is the quality of the investment in terms of what it could do in the system,” Onifade noted. According to him, the government should as a matter of exigency begins to see how it can meet the 26 per cent of the country fiscal budget in education, if the sector is to fix.
The National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) did not differ in his assessment of the nation’s education sector, which he said, suffers policy imposition. According to Dr. Nassir Issa Fagge, who lectures at the Bayero University, Kano (BUK), the education system has really not witnessed any significant improvement within the last 14 years of democracy, in the true sense of overriding development.
There is a reason for this, and that is because the Bretton Woods, that is, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have taken over the control of the nation’s economic system, and as a result they have kept on imposing unfavourable education policies on Nigeria.
“The focus of these global institutions is to make our institutions build middle level and low income manpower for the economies, but leaving the upper class as the exclusive rights of the advanced economies and the few sons and daughters of the rich,” the union leader said.
He lamented: “The Nigeria University System Innovation Project, which ASUU has kept on opposing since 2001, was introduced to reduce our universities to commercial ventures, and the results are the frequent hike in fees we have currently experiencing on our campuses.
This is to further send more students out of the system, and part of the consequences is the general state of insecurity we today found ourselves. Who do we expect to pay the high fees being introduced? Is the children of over 60 per cent of the population that lives on less than two US Dollars a day?
Forcing people out of school will only aggravate the security challenges we are currently battling to address, and so far, our efforts at resolving them are only window dressing.”
To Fagge, there are schools without facilities and in which their low poor performance is exposed when they are admitted to higher institutions. He spoke of how ASUU had consistently advised the Federal Government and other stakeholders on the need to have an internally structured education policy that will drive researchbased education system and not the theoretical centres we have reduced our universities to.
In a nutshell, he hinted that all efforts in the last 14 years to reposition the education have been misdirected and there is need for redirection. However, the National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) Senate President, Salahudeen Lukman, from the Kaduna Polytechnic, noted that the last 14 years of education in the country has been a terrible experience in terms of quantum development of the sector.
Tracing the problems in the sector today, he said: “It is unfortunate that in the last 10 months or thereabout, polytechnics across the federation have been shut, while the colleges of education have suffered similar fate.
Yet, we pretend as if all is well with the nation’s education system. Our generation may witness harder times in future if the government failed to address the challenges facing the education sector,” Lukman argued.
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