Sir: Over the past years, there has been a significant change in the relationship between education and economic development and how they both correlate with one another. The rate of dependency of the former on the latter has caused great chaos in institutions which are a vital part of these sectors. Most of these problems, however, have arisen from ineptness and unprofessionalism in the economic sector. Education, which is a foremost and pre-requisite tool for development in virtually every sphere of human life, has lost its potency and influence on economic development. Graduates leave school with little or nothing to contribute in aiding economic development and this owes majorly to the fact that fundamental problems in the economic sector which in turn, affect the education sector, are left unidentified. As a result of this, various economic crises such as inflation may arise even when there are many monetary problems in educational institutions which need to be resolved.
In most tertiary institutions, there tends to always be a periodic population explosion with the start of every new academic session. Students can be seen receiving lectures in an incapacitated hall with no public address system(s) to aid easy communication. In such cases also, the class could be coordinated and managed by just one academic instructor. This propagates lackadaisicalness among students and even lecturers. Research which is very essential in the discovery and or development of ideas has been neglected. General Studies courses, mostly offered by first and second year tertiary institution students does not comprise of courses that are research-based. As a result, students are exposed to the world of research only in their final year of study; when they are carrying out their projects.
Most of the inadequacies and fallacies in the education sector are extensions of problems in other sectors; especially the economic sector. Funding for acquisition and instalment of tools which are highly essential for learning is inadequate or lacking. There is a pressing need to discourage the perception that education obtained elsewhere is superior to that obtained in Nigeria. This can only be made possible if those behind the destruction of the education sector are denied acquiring education elsewhere.
- Elijah Sunom Umaru, <sunomkttw@gmail.com>