The tragic death of some students of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, last week, following the sudden collapse of the makeshift bridge linking one of their hostels to a classroom block is regrettable. Four students have been confirmed dead, some are still missing and some others sustained various degrees of injuries when the bridge caved in. The management of the university has shut down the school, as students were riled enough to protest the tragic incident.
This latest incident comes barely a year after a building housing a primary school in Lagos collapsed, killing some pupils and injuring others. The outrage lasted for a few days then. As usual with most Nigerian tragedies, we forget so soon only to remember when another tragedy occurs. These two tragic incidents at both the primary and tertiary levels of education in the country are mere metaphors of the systemic rot in the education sector in a country with more than 13 million out of school children.
Reports indicate that the students of the university had complained several times about the weak bridge which they had to use in their daily commute to and from their hostels. It is obvious with this tragic collapse that the university authorities did not take the needed action of rebuilding the bridge and now it has cost lives and other material losses with wide ranging implications. The students were in the middle of their examinations. This tragedy will obviously affect their mental well-being going forward.
The tragic deaths of these students happened because, for so long, Nigeria has allowed too much decay at all levels of education. Little attention seems to be given to education despite the fact that, as Malcolm X once said, “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” Nigeria, from all indications seems, through flawed policies and poor implementation of programmes and monitoring of the education sector, not preparing for a prosperous future. We have millions of illiterates and poorly educated to show for this, sadly.
For years, UNESCO put a national budgetary allocation benchmark of 26% for education for member countries. Nigeria has consistently fallen short of that benchmark, with very dire consequences for the country that is now the poverty capital of the world. The budgetary allocation for education in 2019 budget for instance is a paltry 7.05%. This, outrageous as it appears, seems an improvement of sort from previous years that often oscillated between five and seven percent.
This lack of proper attention to the education sector has logically become the albatross of Nigeria as the most populous country in Africa and has now earned us the profane accolade as one of the poor nations of the world. Education, technology and ideas rule the world and any country that ignores these would naturally be reeling in poverty and underdevelopment.
The fact that the university under reference is a federal university in a way summarises the level of decay in the nation’s tertiary institutions’ infrastructure. The pictorial evidence of the collapsed make-shift bridge that was even allegedly maintained by the students themselves at some point speak eloquently to the level of infrastructural neglect in federal institutions, including teaching hospitals where doctors and other medical students are trained. It points to why our leaders travel to other countries to get better medical attention.
For so long, the boom in the private schools sector seems to have obliterated the relevance of public schools from where most, if not all, public officers got their own quality education. The basic education level that is supposed to be handled by states seems equally in a shambles with decrepit infrastructure and poorly trained and motivated teachers who often, ironically send their own kids to private schools. The secondary education does not seem any better as the country yearly churns out half-baked literates who neither have skills for survival nor have their intellect sharpened enough for creative engagement to develop the country.
The result of the lack of attention to the education sector in Nigeria is neither a fairy tale nor futuristic. It is one of the reasons the country is at the edge of the precipice economically, politically and socially. A 56.9% literacy rate in a country of about 180 million is a cause for concern. Again, the quality of education accessible to the so-called literate ones is equally a determining factor of the level of productivity the country can achieve.
There is no country that is developed and prosperous that has not invested in good quality education at all levels. The psychological effects of poor infrastructure on both the teachers and students are evident in the now notorious frequency of strikes by both school teachers and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that is now a blight on the Nigerian education system, forcing much of the brain-drain that now enriches other economies.
The deaths of these students must not go the way of most Nigerian school tragedies that are quickly swept under the carpet till another tragedy happens. Those in charge of our education system must dig in to unravel those whose negligence caused these avoidable deaths. They must be legally prosecuted as a deterrent to others in the country.
We must stop applauding reactionary actions. There must be enough pro-activeness in our system to create a more conducive learning environment with the best infrastructure and well trained human capital. There must be an emergency action in the education sector for us to lift our people out of poverty and into a prosperous world powered by the educated. The nation must be on autopilot in the education sector. It is the only option if we must relinquish the poverty capital tag.
