Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
| From: orogun olanike <dam_nik@yahoo.com> Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2017 11:34 To: Ayo Olukotun; Foluso Orogun Reply To: orogun olanike Cc: Joel Nwokeoma Subject: Prof.'s column |
A NATION'S UNENDING SEARCH FOR QUALITY EDUCATION
AYO OLUKOTUN "Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of Education". Aphorism posted at the entrance gate of a South African University.
"It is a very serious situation, when teachers cannot pass the exams that they are supposed to teach the children to pass" President Muhammadu Buhari, The Punch November 14, 2017.
It has taken the insistence of Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai to sack unqualified primary school teachers, as well as President Muhammadu Buhari's endorsement of Rufai's position, at the recent Presidential Retreat on Education, to return quality education to the front burner of national conversation. Buhari's alarm at the mass failure among Kaduna state teachers, of a test meant for their students, expressed in one of the opening quotes, is a healthy portent that quality education will now get the pride of place it deserves in the scheme of things. For, as the first opening quotes suggests, nations can easily be destroyed by substandard education, which ensures that doctors are half baked, engineers are ill-trained and accountants do not measure up to the billings of their profession.
It should be of interest that in the aftermath of the shocking revelation of incompetence in Kaduna schools, some experts are telling us that what was unearthed, is only a tip of the iceberg of comprehensive decay in the educational sector. For instance, it has been suggested that there will be equally astonishing results, if similar tests were to be administered in primary and secondary schools nationwide. So, it is not enough for the more educationally developed south to scoff and say this can only happen in Kaduna and the North, for there is accumulating evidence that what Buhari described as a tragedy in Kaduna is applicable in greater or lesser degree to what is going on around the country.
To buttress this, recall that it was the failure of a secondary school teacher in Edo state to read, much less understand an elementary passage in a textbook that compelled a former Governor of the State, Comrade Adams Oshiomole to introduce competency tests, which were later abandoned in the heat of electoral competition. In other words, we do not even have accurate data concerning the extent of educational decay at primary and secondary school levels.
Proffering solutions to problems that have not been accurately diagnosed is the equivalent of a journey without maps. This writer once had occasion to mention on these very pages the example of two senior colleagues who were consulting for one of the South West governments on improving teachers' competence in English Literature.. As one of them told me: "We started by testing the teachers concerning their knowledge of prescribed English Literature texts. We were alarmed to discover that almost all of them were barely acquainted with the novels that they were supposed to be teaching". Hopefully, decisive action will follow the lamentations that took centre stage at the recent Presidential Retreat. But it should be noted that the country has witnessed a harvest of diagnoses on the state of education as well as proposals for reform, which never got off the ground. It remains to be seen whether the recent Retreat will end up as another jamboree or occasion for airing the woes of the educational sector, without taking specific steps to remedy them. Before pursuing the narrative further however, this writer craves the reader's indulgence to offer a short take.
It was just as well that Lead City University, Ibadan rolled out the drums, last week, to celebrate its 10th Graduation Ceremony. One of the highlights of the events was the presence of two high profile political leaders belonging to the ruling party, namely, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, governor of the state of Osun, who delivered the Convocation Lecture on Wednesday, and the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, (SAN), who addressed the graduating students in a direct and memorable manner. Those who had imagined that Aregbesola will speak to the burning concern of the moment, which is restructuring the federation, must have been disappointed; but his lecture was not disappointing. He charged the private universities to set about the task of elevating the human condition in our country, through researches and innovations that come to grips with existential conditions. In his words, "beyond teaching and churning out graduates every year, our universities including the private ones must meet the urgent needs of our society".
For this to happen however, the private universities must be given the opportunity to access research grants from the Educational Trust Fund, which for now, is exclusively reserved for public universities. If this happens, the nation will be borrowing a leaf from higher education in the United States, where some of the best universities are private universities.
Oshinbajo addressed the graduating students, concerning the need to apply the principles of success and greatness, by looking beyond their certificates. Deploying a striking quote from Raven hill, he reminded the students that "the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity". That was his way of telling the students that the opportunities that they have, possess shelf lives or expiry dates, after which they may no longer be able to seize them.
To illustrate the point and the need for the fresh graduates to apply themselves with diligence, he cited the example of a young Nigerian who applied for an international job requiring competence in two international languages. Unable to meet the language conditions specified for the job, the young man despairingly said that he has proficiency in English and Itsekiri! Osinbajo went on to emphasise that the youths, some of who are already taking great strides in Information Technology will only realise their dreams when they apply the virtues of trustworthiness, creativity and meticulous preparation. Hopefully, not just the graduating students but Nigeria youths will learn and take to heart the insights of the two senior citizens.
To return to the original discourse on quality education, political will must now be mustered by the governing elite to return education to the decency and high watermark which it once enjoyed. Unqualified and ill-trained primary and secondary school teachers should be shown the door, as Rufai has done in Kaduna. This is all the more so because we have now learnt that many of these so called teachers were brought into the system by unscrupulous politicians who cared little for the consequences of unleashing the horde of half-literates on a system already in decline.
That apart, political will must be translated to financial wherewithal and budgetary upgrade. It is nonsensical to keep lamenting the problems, while retaining education as a budgetary backwater year after year. If Buhari is serious about reforming education, then he must somehow translate his intention into increased expenditure and monitoring of money allocated.
Finally, any meaningful reform must tamper with the educational calendar to ensure that students stay longer in school and ensure that students work for longer hours, as we find in the Asian countries. This should also include bringing back the Higher School Certificate as a clearing house between basic and tertiary education.
No comments:
Post a Comment