DECAYS IN NIGERIA’S EDUCATION; THE WAY FORWARD

The word education presents a picture of a formal and organized teaching-learning process, with a view to improving the quality of living in people. Its pictorial overview, projects a more organized environment, where education is allowed to dictate the inter relationship of people entangled in the web of several activities.

Education in Nigeria should be given a holistic approach; it is not to be viewed as an aspect of life but a way of life that is entrusted with the vigour and vitality to redefine the mission and vision of man for the desired comfort of existence as mere mortal. Thus a clinical overview of its surmountable challenges is neither a child’s play nor a wasted effort but a worthy effort in the right direction. 

Decays in the education sector are majorly products of the shift in paradigm; that is, an overt or covert shift in the attention given to the receiver of education to the subject and other related factors. For a cute and accurate understanding of the learner and most importantly to reflect an indepth research about the learners, certain assumptions need to be put into consideration with a view to creating a lead way to a justifiable conclusion.

ASSUMPTIONS

1.  The child is an active agent in his own development. When considering his behaviour, attitudes or beliefs, we must always remember that as we observe and make judgements about him, so does he continually make a general overview of his own environment and relate it to his growth.

2.     The child cannot be separated from his environment; his understanding of himself is influenced by his own particular family, his physical and social environment as well as his own temperament. The school therefore has to function as a means of lifting the child up, by helping him to modify his poor emotional condition and weakness in social and physical interaction.

3.     Intervention should be activated when the child’s background is unfavourable. Lack of love and fear of insecurity are basic deprivations that can easily derail a child completely and turn him to a monster in future. Hence, the need for an attempt to emphasize a deterministic approach with a careful survey to understand the early experiences of the child and compensate for his deprivations (love and security) shall be of great value to his growth. This indirectly helps him to view himself as an effective and active agent in shaping his own future.

4.     The teacher is a role model.  Children often see their instructor as a small god. His actions, dressing, ways of life and creative abilities have superfluous impact on the perception of the child about himself and life in general. The teacher thus play an important role in shaping the child’s perception of himself and his environment, by reflecting goodness in all his conducts such that the child faces the future confidently and hopefully.

From the assumptions, common sense therefore helps to infer the invaluable goodness of education to mankind by way of summary thus:

1.     It prepares man for the membership of his immediate society

2.     It redefines his sense of responsibility and usefulness to the society

3.     It helps to transform the values in our cultural heritage

4.     It makes available a life time meal ticket

5.     It presents individual as a respected fellow in the society

6.     It makes man an encyclopedia of knowledge

7.     It promotes the sense of understanding and tolerance in man

8.     It makes man a potential problem solver

9.     It graduates man into the dynamic evolution of development

10. It ultimately helps in turning all forms of oddities in man to positivities.

                                                            

Without mincing words, education is the only lifeline that does not depreciate in value; instead, it appreciates with time. The value of education is a case of the older the wine, the better the taste.

Inferences from various research works and field events  affirmed that, it is evidently clear that decays in Nigeria’s education, going by the varying occurrences in our educational system, is a function of the deficiency of the variables and principal actors in the education sector: Parents, Students, Teachers, School Managers, Government and the  Society at large.

a)     Parents: It is quite unfortunate that the expected norms and values, care and love from parents as contributions to the education of their wards are not forthcoming. This neglected foundation is primarily a visible shift of attention from the learners and hitherto creates a passage for rots or decays in Nigeria’s education. Research also made it possible that family with poor financial status often breed children beyond their financial capabilities. Thus, these children become loosed strings; abandoned, uncared for and highly uninterested in western education. 

b) Students: Possibly, dwelling on the neglect from parents as already highlighted above, especially in the government owned schools which harbor children from poor homes and background.  Students these days have remained too difficult to manage and highly un-teachable. The usual zeal and determination in quest for sound and qualitative education which is defendable as it was in those good old days is at very low ebb. 

c) Teachers and School Managers: Researches have shown that the low levels of motivation and incentives for teachers have somehow affected the commitment of both the teachers and the school managers to the teaching-learning process. Teachers have seen teaching as a mere passage and not a profession. In the recent past, teachers were regarded as demi-gods. The society accorded them much recognition and the teaching profession was equally regarded as a noble profession by other professionals. With this kind of recognition, teachers were always readily available to inject their very best into the system but today, reverse is the case. The teaching profession is fast becoming a dumping ground for people who have no iota of love for the profession but just needed a cushion to make ends meet.

d)    The government: As the umbrella shielding all the facets of human social needs, it will not be an understatement to say government also created an open root for decays in the education system in Nigeria. The inconsistent policies and practices of government in the education sector, poor funding and management of schools, inadequate teaching and non-teaching personnel, granting of approval to private schools with total disregard for due process by government officials [Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of education, High and Primary Schools] creates a smooth walkway for decays in our education sector and thus require serious attention. Many of these “approved”schools are organized examination centres; the genesis of rots and decays and a well packaged mode of swindling both students and their parents.

e)    The Society: The rot that is clearly evident in our society certainly has a direct effect on the education system in Nigeria. Broken homes, poverty, increase in crime rate, juvenile delinquency, insurgency, corruption, unemployment and under employment have all in no small measures positioned our education in Nigeria on the wrong axis. Some of these factors have killed the urge in our youths; the zeal to strive to acquire sound and qualitative education is dead.

THE WAY FORWARD

A problem of this magnitude requires multiple solutions; dedication, sincerity and utmost commitment.

As youths, we must jettisoned mediocrity for meritocracy, abandon cutting corners and tow the path of greatness, reduce emphasis on material gain and focus on acquiring qualitative education. In quest for education, we must always stand for what is right at all the time even if we have to stand alone. This will only present you as glittering examples amongst dummies.

As parents and stakeholders in the education industry, rots are not always easy to reverse. Genuine determination is a necessity, extra-efforts are required and ultimately a rescue bill is inevitable. The wind of change that is blowing across the country should be channeled towards righting the visible wrongs in our education. As government, priority should be given to education. Schools must be well funded; teaching materials should be made available, teachers emolument should reflect their input as human builders, policies should not just be adopted arbitrarily without due consideration to the its significance in years to come. The plain truth is that all hands must be on deck to reverse the identified lapses and deficiencies in our education.

According to Frantz Fanon “every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it”. The past is gone; the future is a clean slate. The choice is ours to invest positively in the growth of our youths via education by drifting completely away from all forms of identified acts of negligence, oversights and deprivations that are responsible for the decays in their education.  In quest for a viable nation, education is the major baton of hope and sustenance.

Alabi Dare Sulaiman.