Competition, quest for quick wealth, parents’ pressure, governance failure, lack of supervision, students’ lousy attitude to learning, high cost/registration procedures killing education.
At the wake of the Chibok girls’ abduction, the public outcry was for the safety of the students. Sadly, the public barely took note that the abducted students who were about taking the Senior School Certificate Examination could hardly speak English.
An Al-Jazeera reporter, who rode in the same bus with them (those who escaped) from Abuja where they were received by the Presidency then and back to Chibok, was so disappointed that none of the girls could speak sufficient English to narrate their days in captivity.
In the same vein, Anthony Anwuka, a professor and minister of state for education, who was disappointed with the decline in the quality of education, especially among university graduates, recently proposed an additional year of post-graduation internship for doctors and lawyers to improve quality.
While many argued that such recommendation amounted to additional burden on parents and sponsors, the university don insisted that the extra year after graduation would account for more solid standing of graduates of the two professions.
Then, if the quality of law and medical graduates is fast declining, what about the quality of graduates in other disciplines considered less demanding, if one may ask.
The worse hit are employers of labour who spend so much resources and time to train and retrain lots of Nigerian graduates that join their organisations in order to equip them with the skills required to perform their duties in their workplace.
Disappointed over the poor quality of new recruits in the bank, a human resources manager in a tier-1 Nigerian bank lamented that, “nowadays, the universities just don’t care about the students, all they care is to give them certificates at the end of their degree courses. But I think the certificate should have been for attendance and not graduation”.
In his column in one of the national dailies last Wednesday on ‘Education! Education! Education!’ Ray Morphy, lamenting the falling standard of the nation’s education, said: “We cannot continue to churn out pupils who are taught by teachers who have no interest either in education or in the pupils. We cannot continue to allow education policies that are designed to award certificates rather than award skills.”
It is even more disheartening that despite the poor output, more schools and universities are springing up every day.
According to the National Universities Commission (NUC), Nigeria presently has 43 federal universities, 48 state universities, and 79 private Universities, which combine to a total of 170 universities, yet quality is in doubt.
In the lower cadre- nursery, primary and secondary- the number is legion!
The worry for many who are concerned about the decline in the quality of education is that the NUC seems to care more about approving new universities and does not look the way of the institution again, thereafter, even when quality is in doubt.
There have been cases of lowering the procedure of accrediting courses across universities now, especially private ones, and this has encouraged mediocre in charge, while lecturers keep moving from public universities to private ones all because of the money the private institutions are offering.
“These days, every PhD holder wants to become a professor after five years of lecturing, while professors are jostling around their rich relations and friends to open universities where they will become vice chancellors. That is how ambitious people are and how the ambition is ruining the quality of education in the country”, Echeozo Utah, a university lecturer-turned preacher, lamented.
The decline, according to Utah, is also fueled by the proliferation of private universities that do everything, including awarding unmerited first class degrees to attract more students, and of course, make their money in the process.
“A parent once told me that his son made first class and he wants him to continue till PhD and to become a lecturer, but the son insisted on relocating abroad to pursue business. After extensive discussion with the young man, I discovered that he truly did not earn the first class. The father virtually paid for everything the young man did while in school”, Mike Ikpeme, head of Guidance and Counselling in a private college in Lagos, said.
He thinks the emphasis on certificate is the result of the decline. “Everybody must not attend university. If you are technically inclined or business-minded, you should rather attend a technical school and entrepreneurial coaching, but all the technical institutions are almost dead because of the fad for degree certificate. Any child you ask to forget university and acquire technical skill will hate you,” he said.
While the universities are taking the hit, many people think that the primary and secondary schools are worse. They lamented that the foundation has been faulty for a long time and is impacting negatively on the quality we have today.
In most private nursery and primary schools, the teachers are ordinary school leavers who are in the class because of lack of job. They are not trained or even passionate about teaching, hence cannot impart knowledge. The worse is that they are paid ridiculous salaries that cannot take anybody home.
Most proprietors have no passion for education, but purely driven by money they make from the business. Moreover, supervision by relevant regulatory authorities is either non-existent of largely poor. With all these, quality cannot be guaranteed. The situation often results in mass failure and mass promotion of the pupils to the next class, until graduation.
“We have not taken time to review our primary school curriculum and activities. If you are sad over the proliferation of universities, what about primary schools that open per minute and do not need government approval again. We have to go back to the root of the problem, which is primary and secondary school levels”, Samson Omoregbe, a university lecturer, said.
It is sad that public schools are inadequately funded and private schools are taking advantage of the learning infrastructure deficit to woo pupils and students to their so-called better option, but government, who should be the regulator, is not helping the matter, according to Omoregbe.
“If as a government, I cannot build good schools, I have to verify that the private entity can build a good one or see the good one they have built, the quality and management before giving approval. The mistake is that approval comes before the building. I think, government should insist on seeing quality before approval and should close down schools that do not meet standard to ensure quality output”, he said.
While government cannot do it alone, it can engage in more collaborations and offer private businesses incentives to see reasons beyond corporate social responsibilities to partner in improving quality of education across the country.
Overseas, most companies that engage in charity are given tax incentives and wavers by the government. Government can do same here.
Decrying the many rickety places that are used as schools and even schools under trees due to lack of roof over the exiting school, Ademola Okenla, a parent, thinks that government should insist on stiffer conditions for approving private schools, especially the primary level, while people should go back to communal efforts that built great institutions in those days.
“We keep saying public schools, but most of them were built by community efforts and handed over to government to run. Communities can still do that again and even hand over to competent private hands to run them if they guarantee better quality”, Okenla said.
Morphy believes that something drastic has to be done.
“As a nation, we ought to reconfigure our value system and put education on top. But first, government must move seriously towards the recommended minimum of 25 percent budgetary allocation for education alone,” he said.
According to him, “When education is given its pride of place in our national scheme of values, then and only then will we begin to take our rightful place in the comity of civilized nations. Until that is done, we continue to be number one among the group of unserious and under-developing nations.”
Zebulon Agomuo, Chuka Uroko, Obinna Emelike, Ikechukwu Onyekwere, Kelechi Ewuzie and Amaka Anagor-Ewuzie
