Posers for the Next Minister of Education

Authur; Professor. Tosanwumi Otokunefo (ALPHA EDUCATION FOUNDATION)

The mid-term cabinet reshuffle carried out by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan that resulted in a vacancy in the topmost position of the ministry of education has created a golden opportunity for Nigeria to address some of the innumerable ills that have plagued the Nigerian education project for so long. From the scandalous statistics of over ten million out of school children to the phenomenon of graduates who cannot read or write, it is virtually impossible to list the series of calamities that have befallen the educational system of our beloved nation Nigeria.

The different “Lords” that have presided over the affairs of the ministry of education in the last ten year have each left the educational system in a worse state than they met it, though each believed that he or she has done the best for the system. On the long run the same basic problems including examination malpractice, corruption and ineptitude in school administration, unsupervised parastatals, poorly trained teachers and inadequate funding, have persisted unabated over the years.

Currently, education is said to be free and universal for the first nine years of school in this country, but money is still being demanded and received for admission, examination and even chalk in many government run basic educational institutions. Many parents cannot provide text books for their children and the government’s free textbook scheme is so haphazard and uncoordinated, and riddled with corruption that most children do not benefit. To make matters worse, teachers in many of these universal basic education (UBE) schools are unqualified and incompetent. Consequently, the products of most of the UBE schools cannot be considered literate as had been expected. How would you improve enrolment in the UBE scheme, deal with the sharp practices of the school administrations and improve on the competence of the teachers and their products?

The senior secondary schools have not fare better either. Massive failures are routinely recorded each year and incidental improvements in performance are hailed as significant achievements. People who cannot read or write and who have never seen the four walls of a secondary school classroom previously can now boast of senior secondary school certificates with fantastic grades. The problem here is massive Sir! Should you consider taking up the job, you should begin to consider without delay how you would improve on performance and reduce examination malpractice at the same time!

The scenario in the tertiary education sector is even more confusing. Attempts have been made by one of your predecessors to abrogate the polytechnics by converting them to universities. The teacher’s training institutions are now populated by drop outs who are expected to train on graduation, the skilled manpower required to drive the nation’s advance into the group of the twenty most developed nations on earth a few years from now. The problems of tertiary education are multifaceted; underfunding is chronic, maladministration is perennial, and various forms of malpractices are endemic. ASUU has successfully wrested a promise of improved funding for the universities, but the onus would rest squarely on you sir to secure funding for the polytechnics and colleges of education.

The joint admissions and matriculation board (JAMB) is literarily Lord in her own rights. She adopts new policies without sufficient consultation with stakeholders as to the ultimate impact on the educational platform. Candidates for the teachers training colleges, the polytechnics and the universities now sit for a single unified tertiary matriculation examination though the training requirements are different. Now it appears she is hell-bent on migrating from the paper and pen test to the computer based platform without adequate evaluation and preparation, hoping that would cure all the ailments of the board.

The National Universities Commission appears to have run out of ideas on how to regulate the operation of the universities in the country. Accreditation exercises have become routine instruments of national and international deceit. Under her watch, students are spending between eight to ten years for a programme that should normally run for six years because of non accreditation. Universities now produce science graduates without functional laboratories and English graduates who can no longer read nor write fluently. There are acute shortages of lecturers in the old establishments while new ones are created without provision for teachers.

The office of the Minister is not spared this absurdity either. Expenses are made without clearly defined objectives. It is now quite stylish to purchase and dump computers on schools where virtually no teacher is computer literate and where the science laboratories are thread bare! Arbitrariness has become the order of the day even within the ministry. You must rein in the parastatals and closely watch what is happening in your kitchen! Your courage must be unquestionable and your zeal must be guided with knowledge if you would succeed in solving the problem of the Nigerian educational system; there is no room for a charlatan!