For too long, the alarm bell has been ringing about the country’s uncertain future because of the crises bedevilling the education sector. This is the message in the global Human Capital Development Report of 2017, which the World Economic Forum released recently. It ranked Nigeria a lowly 114th out of the 130 countries surveyed. When Rwanda (71), Ghana (72), Cameroon (73), Mauritius (74) and South Africa (87), are ranked above Nigeria, then the crisis recommends itself to a national summit.
The gangrene affects the entire educational chain: primary, secondary and tertiary. The facts speak for themselves: with just two marks out of 200, pupils are admitted to the Federal Unity Colleges in some states in the North. Each year, Nigeria’s 153 public and privately-owned universities churn out graduates that lack skills, thus making them unemployable and leaving an army of frustrated youths, many of whom find solace in criminality: kidnapping, armed robbery and other forms of violent crime.
But the rot takes root at the basic level. Lamentably, it has ceased to be functional. School leavers can no longer read or write; a shocking deficit they share with their teachers. A former Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission, Mohammed Moddibo, confirmed this in 2012; “…I have given them UBE books in Sokoto State. But more than 50 per cent of the entire teachers in the state cannot read because they are not qualified.” A national survey by the Federal Ministry of Education then showed that the case of unqualified teachers was endemic across the country. Even the so-called trained teachers with the Nigerian Certificate of Education that is now the minimum requirement to teach at the basic level, cannot function effectively.
There is a mismatch between what NCE teachers are trained for and the primary school workload. This explains why 21,780 out of 33,000 primary school teachers, failed a primary four level test in Kaduna State last month. This was not the first time. In 2013, 1,300 out of 1,599 teachers failed the same exam. In Kwara State, the malady was similarly exposed.
Consequently, any superstructure erected on this weak foundation is tantamount to building castles in the air. This is the challenge the country is faced with. It underlines what an erstwhile UNESCO Director in Nigeria, Hassana Alidou, described as “education without learning” during the launch of Education for All, Global Monitoring Report in Abuja, in 2014. She said that Nigeria had the worst education indicators globally. Absolutely! As the public school system has collapsed, increasing the over 10.5 million pupils that are out-of-school, it has given room for an uncontrollable buccaneering drive by private investors.
At the tertiary level, workers unions at the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are perennially on strike. The Academic Staff Union of Universities in September suspended a five-week long strike, following a new accord it secured, against the backdrop of government’s indifference to the implementation of a 2009 agreement it entered into, which had a raft of measures on how to improve funding of the system and enhance welfare of lecturers.
Developed countries have clearly made the point: achievements in economic development and the well-being of their citizens are not by accident; but by deliberate efforts driven by massive investment in education. In spite of their progress, periodic reviews of their curriculum in response to existential challenges are undertaken. It is said that knowledge and skills would increasingly become the primary determinants of economic growth and development. Countries with higher and better levels of skills will adjust more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of growth in a globalised world.
For this reason, STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics dominate their educational objectives and investments are made accordingly. Norway (6.5 per cent), New Zealand (6.9 per cent), South Korea (6.7 per cent), Israel (6.5 per cent), the United Kingdom (6.3 per cent) and the United States (6.4 per cent), are among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that rank highest in education spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, according to 2012 figures. The World Bank put their GDP as follows: $499.6 billion; $167.3 billion; $1.1trillion; $258.2billion; $2.4trillion and $16 trillion respectively. Only N455 billion was provided in the 2017 budget for Nigeria’s education, as against the huge investments being made by the West.
Apparently, the government leads the way given the social policy nature of education. The private sector and philanthropists complement public spending. In the US, for instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last week rolled out a plan to invest $1.7 billion in the public school system over the next five years. It argued, “Without success in colleges or career preparation programmes” students face a bleak future, stressing, that “the economic future and competitiveness of the United States,” will be affected too.
A national foundation like this produced Bill Gates himself, the late Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg – three American geniuses of the computer age. They did not rely on university degrees because none of them had any, but on the skill-based education they acquired at the lower level to create wealth, provide jobs and become among the richest in the world.
Nigeria, therefore, needs to learn from other nations that have got it right. Scrupulous planning and implementation are imperative. When we copy, it must be well done. However, it was not the case with the 6-3-3-4 education policy, designed to infuse vocational skills into the secondary school curriculum. It failed because implementation was fatally flawed, fuelled by official corruption: empty training workshops, lack of equipment and trained teachers for the programme.
Instructively, Norway, Finland and Switzerland topped the WEF 2017 HCD ranking. These are places where teaching is the most sought-after profession because of the remuneration attached; and only the best brains are recruited and rigorously trained. The situation here contrasts sharply. Therefore, teaching should be refocused, beyond the registration of teachers in the name of professionalism. Emphasis on quality training, retraining and welfare should be entrenched in the system. Also, the absurdity of creating universities that cannot be well-funded to embrace research and innovation should stop.
While Nigeria crawls in acquiring basic science and technology culture, advanced societies are widening the knowledge gap with inroads in artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, nanotechnology and quantum computing. Indeed, Nigeria’s future is bleak with low investment in productive knowledge. Countries are rich because they know how to create or produce.
