Standard of Education in Nigeria: Falling or Dead? | Tellwell Newspaper
Tellwell Newspaper, Abuja – Nigeria:
By Dr. Bello Abba Ahmed
I recall, a couple of years ago, we were worried why our favorite Professor then at A.B.U Zaria put in his resignation from the university. I met him personally and inquired why he was leaving when the system needed him most. At that time, his explanation wasn’t convincing enough until years later when I too grew in the system. It has now downed on me that surely Prof was right after all, in his infinite wisdom, he foresaw the problem coming and wasn’t ready to be part of it. Prof’s reply to my inquiry was, there wasn’t any incentive for him to remain in the system because even postgraduate students were incapable of doing independent research.
It’s shocking how fast the standard of our education is deteriorating in Nigeria. During our NYSC about twenty years ago, a fellow corps member, a lawyer, came to me to assist him reply to an ordinary query for a minor offense. He was incapable of writing a one-page letter explaining why he shouldn’t be sanctioned. I also met two computer scientists who weren’t computer literate at all and had to enroll in those road side computer certificate trainings to bridge the gap.
About three years ago or so, we conducted an aptitude test in our department for prospective M.Sc. candidates. None of them scored up to 30 per cent. In fact, to our amazement there was a particular candidate with zero. When we cross-checked, the candidate had a mysterious first-class degree. Yes, you heard me right, even though it was from a Cotonou university. Nevertheless, be careful before you rush to indict the entire Cotonou degrees. Some Nigerian graduates are as bad as that.
The systemic neglect of public primary and secondary schools by the government has for long reached fruition, we are reaping what we sowed. We are currently battling with a generation of university students who at best have vague or shadowy primary and secondary education. They are incapable of solving simple arithmetic like fractions, divisions or multiplications without a calculator, or speaking and writing in English correctly. They also have very poor comprehension and analytical reasoning. Unfortunately, students nowadays are only accustomed to route memorization, any activity that requires critical thinking is like a torture to them. This is not because they are dullards, far from that, it’s rather more attributable to the state failure to standardize primary and secondary education by employing more qualified teachers and increased funding for facilities. A lot of them are intelligent, capable of learning and would do better if they have good foundation.
The dual problems of poor language and numeracy resulting from poor foundation have petrified education at the higher institution level, particularly at the university. As such teachers at higher institutions in the country have to play triple roles of refreshing some elements of primary and secondary school knowledge before building the advanced knowledge expected of them. Even though most of the students are brandishing galvanized, often intimidating, but questionable secondary school results.
My fear is, this weak system of education has started producing teachers taking over from the remaining few good ones at universities, polytechnics and colleges. These memory robots are now responsible for producing the next generation of teachers, technocrats, bureaucrats, medics, security agents, professionals etc. This is the direction we have chosen for this country where the leadership will inevitably be taken over by a generation of idiots who can’t think, reason or innovate anything for growth and development. But I am sure they will be grand masters of corruption in all ramifications. The system has collapsed already.
Finally, a number of factors coalesced in bringing down our system of education, ranging from students’ laziness, poor reading culture, addiction to social media, certificate prioritization by the society rather than knowledge, institutionalization of corruption, get-rich-quick syndrome, societal disrespect of teachers, poor remuneration of teachers amongst others. Of course, all these are reinforced and supported by the nonchalance of the society and government on the quality of education. The emphasis of everybody is simply paper qualification. Unless we redirect our value system to respect knowledge and force our state and federal governments to treat education as a human right by investing more in public education we are heading into a deeper morass. Every Nigerian should have a right to free qualitative basic education, as is the best practice globally.
Ahmed wrote this piece from Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State.
