"Today, it is perhaps only in some of our private institutions that lecturers and teachers are required to submit elaborate courseware replete with week by week iteration of lecture topics, recommended textbooks, sample tutorial questions to guide the students; and a clear mapping of the disciplinary terrain to be traversed. A society is reinforced in the values it promotes."
----Ayo Olukotun
A great summation of the absence of quality instruction in our universities. However, this does not even go far enough to capture the tragedy of poor instruction in our universities. You talk of preparation, planning, and meticulous and up-to-date lecture notes. What if I tell you that when I was an undergrad in Nigeria in the mid nineties, many of the lecturers didn't have a syllabus that outlined the topical scope, readings, and assignments of the class. Why? Simple: they were not required to have one and knew that they could get away with not designing a syllabus and teaching on the fly if they taught at all. Their incomepetence, along with their job, was protected by ASUU. They did not have to justify their earnings, their performance was of no consequence to their continued employment, and, thanks to their ASUU membership they could not be fired for poor performance. Also, a few of our lecturers came to class ONCE or TWICE a semester and simply passed around handouts that we had to pay for, and then, at the end of the semester, they showed up to administer exams. Some of them even delegated the administration of the exams, making them absentee lecturers par excellence. Studing for some exams was a wild guessing game since, in the absence of coherent and comprehensive syllabi, one was not sure what materials the exams were going to be based on. It was terrible.
Tragically, we now describe that period as something of a pre-crisis phase in Nigerian higher education since by all indications the situation has worsened since the 1990s.
And yet, we see nothing, zilch, nada, about performance and instructional accountability in ASUU's menu of issues.
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 10:01 PM, <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com> wrote:
--Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.From: Tope Olaiya <estyyolly@yahoo.com>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 05:31:02 -0700 (PDT)ReplyTo: Tope Olaiya <estyyolly@yahoo.com>Subject: THE ELUSIVE SEARCH FOR QUALITY EDUCATIONTHE ELUSIVE SEARCH FOR QUALITY EDUCATIONAYO OLUKOTUNThe catastrophic drop in the quality of education on offer within the country has led to on the one hand increasing educational tourism by Nigerians anxious to escape the bedlam at home, and on the other, growing agitation for remedies, tinged with nostalgic glances at the brighter days. I have often caused amazement in my university classes when I recall to my students the disdain with which American first and second degrees were once viewed by Nigerians who were trained in their own countries. 'American Undergraduate Education' I would persist, 'was somehow seen as inferior to what was available here'. Before the rising swell of consternation subsides in the now keenly attentive students, I would add the clincher: 'Indeed, it was mainly those who failed to gain entry to our universities on account of weak grades that found refuge in American universities and elsewhere'.All that is, as you could almost hear some of the students say under their breath "ancient history". As the nation itself experienced death throes, economically and politically, our educational institutions wore the face of plundered terrains, deprived of the vital ingredients of credibility and worth. Schools, foundational and tertiary multiplied under the impetus of policies such as Universal Basic Education and Education For All by 2000; but what you got was schooling without education, certificates devoid of merit much less distinction. Revolted by the upsurge of barely literate graduates mass produced by our multiplying tertiary institutions, Emeritus Professor, Akinjide Osuntokun suggested recently, the reintroduction of Higher School Certificate (HSC) programs to better prepare secondary school students for university education, as was once the case in this country. There is of course merit in this and other suggestions for firming up the quality of basic and secondary education, for, obviously, once the damage is unleashed at lower levels, it is extremely uphill, if at all possible to reverse it.Before getting to specific therapies for a violently degraded educational system, however, let us consider that quality education, however we define it cannot flourish in a society where mediocrity, unethical shortcuts, quackery and get-rich-quick rule the roost. The old primary school teacher was an epitome of fidelity to duty, industry and meticulous preparation. I know because my father was one; and it was among his collection of books that I groomed my appetite for reading as a primary school student. Every class he gave was preceded by copious lesson notes setting out what the class was intended to achieve and what methods were to be adopted for elaboration and effect.Today, it is perhaps only in some of our private institutions that lecturers and teachers are required to submit elaborate courseware replete with week by week iteration of lecture topics, recommended textbooks, sample tutorial questions to guide the students; and a clear mapping of the disciplinary terrain to be traversed. A society is reinforced in the values it promotes. Can we recapture the outstanding industry, the discipline and work ethics of the Nigerian teacher of old without restructuring our reward system? Quality education is a function of quality instruction undertaken by capable and motivated teachers in a pleasant learning environment. But ours is a terrain where everything is up for grabs; teachers moonlight by doing other things to make ends meet and spend very little time imparting knowledge. In dire, well reported cases, the teachers are not even qualified to teach; resulting in the half blind attempting to educate the blind.Public sector education presumably subsidized bear two heavy crosses, namely, the cross of underfunding manifested in decaying learning environment and lowly remunerated teachers; as well as the cross of indiscipline evidenced by absenteeism, low regard or disdain for the students and classes dashed off more or less off the cuff. These woes are deepened by the low prestige ranking of the teaching profession aptly captured by the aphorism that the teacher's reward is in heaven but bankers, accountants and politicians can extract their own reward right here on earth.A minimal agenda to resuscitate our prostrate educational system will have to reinsert the training, well being and adequate motivation of the teacher at the centre of the knowledge enterprise. The students, too and the environment, aesthetic, psychological and moral, in which they are called to learn is a source of concern. Obviously students that cheat or 'sort' their ways up the educational ladder are hardly the stuff for designing quality education. Neither are truants, fun loving and distracted students who show up only a few weeks to the examination and yet somehow hope to magically scale the hurdle. Quality education should prioritize continuous assessment, and punctuality undergirded by sanctions that drive home the point about earned achievement and lifelong learning.It goes without saying too, that crowding students into unhygienic and dilapidated buildings in the name of educating them constitutes a disincentive to any serious learning and certainly to quality education. As a nation, we launch big projects and erect imposing buildings and utilities but leave them to rot. Public schools bear the brunt of this lack of a maintenance culture deriving from the negative folk philosophy that government's property is nobody's property. Go back to the secondary school where you graduated some ten, twenty or thirty years ago and see what degradation has overtaken it. See what has become of the first generation universities which were created on the grand scales of the world's best campuses and the point becomes clear. The decay is evident as well in the scarcity of teaching materials, the breakdown of equipment and the hand to mouth situation that exists with respect to support services in a feature that replicates the chaotic expansion and planlessness of our cities. Quality education cannot be built on these decrepit and ill-clad foundations; we must reinvent the educational landscape as best as we can through the tradition of specially designing centers of excellence and innovation while retaining the ideal of expanded access.There is also the vexed issue of truncated calendars which touches a raw nerve in the light of the protracted, ongoing strike of university teachers. Obviously, university shutdowns cannot be the context for quality education; it might be pertinent in this regard to appeal the government whose reneging on a signed agreement triggered off the crisis to reconsider its stand in the interest of quality education. The paradoxical situation of the University of Ilorin which is not a part of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and therefore maintains uninterrupted calendar has led some to question the wisdom and tactics of ASUU. Such arguments can only be convincingly made if the teachers in that university do not benefit from the improved conditions which the unpleasant struggles of ASUU bring about.In sum, a gamut of reforms are required to revitalize the current comatose status of our educational system as well as revive a semblance of the kind of quality education which once defined them and gave them a niche on the world map. It will be nice if such issues begin to preoccupy our politicians currently engaged in all-out-fight for the 2015 elections.Olukotun is Professor of Political Science and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies, Lead City University, Ibadan
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