The quality of graduates from the nation’s universities is said to be poor. This is why many companies consider them unemployable. Where does the problem lie? To experts, it lies in poor policy implementation and lack of investment, among other factors. OLUWATOYIN ADELEYE reports
With 18,000 private and 1,600 public primary and secondary schools in Lagos State alone, there is no doubt that the education sector is so sensitive that it requires careful management. But the sector’s challenges seem unending – from issues of budgetary allocation, quality of teachers and curriculum content to delivery, technology, and morality. experts have identified loopholes that government and society must fix to raise the system to global standard.
Quality
Founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL), Prof Pat Utomi, is so bothered by the problem of quality in the education system that he focused on it at the 34th colloquium of the centre held at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, last month.
Describing it as Nigeria’s biggest education problem, he said: “We still have a problem in Nigeria today about the quality of education. Critical to this problem is that we have not educated our people enough to produce basic needs.”
A lecturer at the University of Abuja, Prof Gidado Tahir, said the problem of quality is pervasive affecting the students, teachers, and resources available for learning.
He said: “We have a serious problem with the quality of students we get; their background; quality of teachers who are expected to be pillars of learning; quality of resources that are available for the learners to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes. so many of these quality issues abound in the educational system.
“So our main question really is what can we do to enhance the quality of what we provide to the learners as education in skills, attitudes and values?”
To enhance teacher quality, Mrs Abolaji Osime, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Global International College, advised that the entry requirements of colleges of education be revised to attract the best brains to the profession.
She said: “How would you put the worst in your class to produce the best out of children? The entry requirement for colleges of education is three credits. From the onset, we do not recognise that profession and they are the ones to teach our children. In Finland, you cannot go into the classroom unless you have a Masters degree.
Professor of educational management, University of Ibadan (UI), Joel Babalola, suggested incentives for trainee teachers.
“It is time for us to think about how to attract the intelligent people into the teaching profession. To do this might mean encouraging them. When I got into the teaching profession, I got bursary and scholarships. Will it not be right if the country can look into subsidizing teachers’ education?” he asked.
Babalola added that quality training could make trainee-teachers the best.
“If you get people who are not A-candidates, you can transform them to become As. For instance, when the public universities reject some candidates, they go to the private universities and you see that the universities would do everything in their power to bring out the best in them. I don’t believe anybody is totally poor. The key word is transformation. We need that model again. Even if you cannot get the brightest, you make sure you transform them to be the best,” he said.
Leadership
Without the right leaders, experts agree that no amount of funding and excellent policies can improve the education system. They believe that political will, commitment and the leaders’ belief in the power of education can transform the sector.
For Mrs Osime, political will is the solution to Nigeria’s educational woes. She said the government needs to learn leadership from the private sector.
“My challenge is that we lack the political will to change education in Nigeria. We talk a lot, but we do not really understand the connection between educating the populace and changing the nation. Our leaders are not paying attention. Successful nations ensure that they invest. It is not about money. The problem is that the money leaks and goes to different places. It ends up in England, in the US, etc.
“I have run a private school for 17 years and my students are getting A-star in the same Nigeria. We are able to teach with the same teachers coming out of the same colleges of education. We have to ask ourselves, what is the difference? What are we doing in the private sector that the public sector is not doing? I see that the political will is not there.”
Tahir also said Nigeria needs leaders that appreciate the role of education in development.
“Let us have a leader who has the foresight and belief that education can be a transforming instrument in our communities. Look at the states in this country; it is obvious that some of the leaders have not even appreciated that education is key to the transformation of their various communities. So, obviously, when you are doing some investments, you will be doing it in other sectors that you consider important and the standard of facilities that ought to be in schools are not there.
“We are also confronted with the issue of numbers to the extent that we are unable to manage. The leaders that we have are not very sensitive to the yearnings of the people as far as the issues of education are concerned. We have a number of policies that are churned out every now and then but without financial backing. So we have so many laws, regulations, commissions, agencies that are out there doing nothing simply because you cannot provide fund for them,” he said.
Curriculum upgrade and government policy
The educationists have suggested a new curriculum and a more inclusive approach to implementing it.
Lecturer at the Lagos Business School (LBS), Dr Chris Ogbechie, thinks that an upgrade of the curriculum would lift the quality of education and raise the nation to a level of global competitiveness.
“What we learn is not necessarily what we are going to use when we get to the workplace because the rate of change is so fast. People say that even the job of the future has not been created. Education is not a static thing because things have changed and keep changing. So when we look at being competitive as a nation, we also have to think of the present generation who will be the ones that will lead us going forward. So are we judging quality of education and its standards, using the standard of our own generation?” he said.
Ogbechie stressed the need for character formation and employability in the curriculum.
He said: “We don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Countries have become competitive because they have invested in education, but education for the future, not for today. Are we conscious of what is happening in the environment? Many of the youths don’t even watch television. It is their parents’ toy. But try social media.”
The lecturer gave an illustration of Ireland: “30 to 40 years ago, the Irish were the laughing stock of the world. Within a decade, Ireland became one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and for them, the secret was education at all levels. As a country, they invested massively in education, not just tertiary, but from the lowest to the highest level, and by doing so, they could boast of a country that had quality manpower, which was able to attract investors and all the leading Information Technology (IT) companies in America decided to move their European bases to Ireland and that completely changed the economy, the people of Ireland, and the respect accorded them. It took government policy to make that happen.”
Mrs Osime said even teacher training curriculum have to be reviewed.
“In the colleges of education, we have been using a curriculum that is of the 17th century, so how can the teachers keep up? We need to upgrade the curriculum in-service and pre-service. We need to teach what is local, even though we are training them to be competitive internationally,” she said.
Prof Babalola underscored the need to ensure textbooks used in schools reflect the Nigerian society, not foreign ones, while the teachers are trained in the use of appropriate technology like e-books, interactive boards, among others.
Industry Partnerships
Public-Private partnership is necessary for the growth of the education sector. Experts said government and schools must strengthen such partnerships .
For instance, Prof Utomi advised government to make it mandatory for teachers to be involved in the industry they are teaching to enable them keep up with industry trends.
“We made a decision in LBS that we would compute your income assuming that 70 per cent of your income would come from your consultation work, because you have to have a relationship with the industry. One of the sad things about policy with public institutions is that people have to hide and dodge to have a side job with their teaching profession but it should not only be encouraged but mandatory. You are not as active as you can be in teaching, unless you are being engaged in the sector you are teaching,” he said.
Ogbechie called for private sector involvement in curriculum review. He also said the partnership between employers and schools must be enhanced to solve the problem of employability.
“We must remember that not every person who goes to school wants to be an employee. We don’t have enough spaces in our universities for all the people who want to go into the university, or polytechnics. But we have enough natural resources to convert as many people as possible to become entrepreneurs. We are not self sufficient in any of the basic needs. We don’t produce enough eggs, chickens, vegetables, yet we have arable land. How can we train them to see themselves as entrepreneurs and self reliant to become employers of labour?” he added.
The Parish Priest of Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, Lekki, Very Rev Monsignor Gabriel Osu, said part of the solution is in returning schools seized by government years ago to their original owners.
He said: “The military came and took over schools, thinking there was money in it and they trampled education to the dust and we are reaping the fruits 30 years later. The politicians have not helped matters. Many of them are wearing military choker so they trample any talk about education. Hence, they allocate little money to education compared to other allowances in government. Return of schools to the missionaries is good,” he said.
