The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Education

  • The satellite approach to mass education

    The satellite approach to mass education

    Undoubtedly, President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has made unprecedented progress across the country in the creation of access to quality education amongst less privileged Nigerians. The statistics are clear and the results are nationwide. These are facts that cannot be disputed, even by die-hard critics of the administration.

    A few examples will suffice. Schools for almajiris across the country, special girl-child schools in educationally disadvantaged communities, on-going construction of schools for out-of-school boys in the Southsouth and Southeast and direct intervention in the improvement of facilities in existing schools in the country. At the tertiary level the Federal Government established nine new Federal Universities with eight already on stream, while another three were recently approved. Within the same period, nine new private universities were also awarded licences to operate.

    This programmed improvement of education opportunities for Nigerians has been premised on the fundamental goal of creating access to basic and tertiary education of the four-year strategy plan for the development of the education sector, 2011 to 2015.

    Beyond the achievements that have been recorded so far as regards the creation of access to schools for Nigerian children and adults, the Federal Government has resolved to directly involve the private sector in working out novel ways to reach those in remote communities of the nation.

    The novel arrangement worked out between the Federal Ministry of Education and Daar Communications Plc will ensure that education signals in all subject areas in the basic education sub-sector are disseminated to Nigerian children residing in the 774 local government areas of the country.

    Minister of State for Education Ezenwo Nyesom Wike said the Federal Government is ready to partner with stakeholders in the private and public sector to deliver quality basic education.

    Wike announced that of the N29billion needed for the project, the Federal Government would not make any financial commitments, aside facilitating the participation of local and state governments.

    Chairman of Daar Communications, Chief Raymond Dokpesi said his outfit would commit 22 dedicated channels to airing education programmes patterned in line with approved Federal Ministry of Education curriculum.

    Dokpesi added that highly trained and qualified teachers have been recruited to deliver lessons to Nigerian children. The local teachers in the respective schools are also partners of the project as they are expected to assist their wards in using the satellite facilities.

    Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Dr MacJohn Nwaobiala described the project as a landmark initiative to extend the benefits of the Federal Government’s education programmes to all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.

    Indeed, for the programme to succeed, the states and the local government areas need to buy into the initiative. The Federal Ministry of Education has already opened dialogue with State Education Commissioners and Local Government Education Authorities to ensure effective participation in the deployment of these facilities to schools across the country.

    Daar Communications has the responsibility to reach out to the governors and also source for the financial resources to execute the project. Dr. Dokpesi is already reaching out to the governors.

    Indeed, many more Nigerian children will be reached because of the impact of television on young minds. For the children in rural communities, this would be an entirely new experience that would open up their world.

    A comprehensive analysis of the expected challenges of the project has been conducted by experts in the private and public sectors, with the conclusion that the programme can be executed successfully. If other challenges arise in the course of project implementation, stakeholders insist that they are committed to address such challenges.

     

    •Nwakaudu is the Special Assistant (Media) to Minister of State for Education.

  • No education varsity, says Fayemi

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said his administration will not establish a University of Education until the state has enough resources to cater for the existing tertiary institutions.

    Dr. Fayemi spoke yesterday at the 21st convocation ceremony of the College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti.

    Senators Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central District) and Sola Adeyeye (Osun Central District) and a legal icon, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), were conferred with the institution’s fellowship award.

    Fayemi said his administration merged the three universities in the state to establish a productive university.

    He said he would never be a party to the establishment of a “glorified secondary school masquerading as a university”, especially when efforts are geared towards revamping the education sector.

    The governor, who had earlier inaugurated the refurbished College Guest House, an ambulance, two buses and two Toyota Corolla cars, said despite the plethora of economic challenges that beset the state, the government has continued to release subventions promptly and implement various welfare packages, including the new salary structure for tertiary institutions.

    This gesture, he said, is aimed at making the state’s tertiary institutions “centres of excellence, with high standard of teaching and a culture of sustained learning”.

    Decrying the erosion of educational values as seen in the abysmal performance of pupils in public examinations, Fayemi said the various reforms in the education sector were recommended at the 2011 Education Summit.

    He said the college has roles to play in the ongoing education reform, especially in the training of teachers.

    Fayemi said the award speaks volumes about the credentials of the awardees, who he described as “worthy”.

    He urged the 12,100 graduates to be hardworking and worthy ambassadors of the state wherever they go.

    Olanipekun hailed the Fayemi administration for “restoring the college” and making laws to back its existence.

    He said the college was “practically non-existent” during the ousted administration of Mr. Segun Oni as the school’s assets and liabilities were transferred to the then University of Education, Ikere and the University of Science and Technology, Ifaki-Ekiti.

    Olanipekun agreed with the merger of the three state-owned universities; saying the government could not manage three independent institutions with its meager resources.

    Urging Fayemi to continue to support the college’s autonomy, the lawyer pledged to contribute to the institution’s development.

    Mrs. Tinubu said the school has improved within the two years of the Fayemi administration.

    She said a nation is “as good as the quality of education it invests in its people”.

    Also at the event were Fayemi’s wife, Bisi; Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka; Senator Babafemi Ojudu; Vice-Chancellor of the Ekiti State University (EKSU) Prof. Dipo Aina; Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Prof. Modupe Adelabu and businesswoman Chief Abba Folawiyo, among others.

  • ‘Good education is expensive’

    ‘Good education is expensive’

    Running a good private school requires capital investments that many proprietors are unwilling to make, says educationist, Mrs Moronke Oshosanya.

    In an interview with The Nation, Mrs Oshosanya, who runs Acehall School in Ikeja, Lagos, asserted that quality education is expensive and that school owners must be willing to train their teachers and put learning resources in place that will improve their school’s education delivery.

    “Good education is expensive. Very few schools train their teachers; very few schools have learning resources. There are fears that after training teachers they leave for other schools. But if you don’t train them, it is garbage in garbage out. But the investment is worth it because a good education impacts for live. You are able to use whatever it is you learnt everywhere,” she said.

    Mrs Oshosanya said further that technological advances underscore the need for Nigerian children to receive quality education because they now compete on a global stage.

    “Away from inability of teachers and inadequate resources, the world has become global and the Nigerian child will be competing with others around the world. Are we preparing children for the world? I was head of school, trainer and consultants before I started Acehall. When I tell proprietors there is a need to do this, they say there is no money. I got frustrated and decided to start a school that would incorporate all I know,” she said.

    In practicalising all she knows in her school, Mrs Oshosanya said her pupils feel so much at home they are unwilling to leave, and advises others to do same.

    “When you come into Acehall as a child you don’t want to leave – a major problem for our parents because their children don’t want to go home. Here, learning is fun,” she said.

    Explaining how Acehall incorporates fun into learning numeracy and literacy, Mrs Oshosanya said pupils connected the film Prince of Egypt with Mathematics. The play, based on the biblical character of Joseph who was imprisoned in Egypt, was enacted during the school’s end of year concert.

    “Take for instance Prince of Egypt, they learnt maths with the film – they calculated the distance of the Nile River and the Red Sea; they plotted graphs with their favourite characters to find out who was most loved,” she said.

  • Ethics, education and community

    Ethics, education and community

    Today I start a series of reflections on what I consider the foundation of a progressive society: the education of the public or public education. I think it is fair to say that the future of any community or nation is going to be determined by the attention it pays to and the resources it provides for the education of its members from the cradle to the grave. If the preceding reasoning is true, then education of the public is also a matter of ethics. First, if we bring children into the world, we have a moral responsibility to educate them so they have a meaningful life experience. Second, educating its public is in the interest of any community that prioritises peaceable living and development. And there is a general consensus among thoughtful people that if a community gets right the priority of educating its members, it can be assured of the addition of all other good things of life.

    I just argued the point that the education of its public is a matter of ethics for any community. But I have not shown, it may be pointed out, why a community should bother about ethics or morality. Indeed, why do we need to worry about shared moral beliefs or moral rules? Why can’t individuals create their own rules and play by it or even refuse to follow their own rules in a consistent fashion? I think many of us would protest the sense of this question because it appears to ignore the reality of our times. Many people, especially the highly placed, now create their own rules and don’t necessarily play by them unless they are assured of benefits for themselves. The point, however, is that even those individuals would be first to advocate common moral rules because it is not in their interest if everyone were to imitate them.

    Without proper communal standards of conduct, anarchy is bound to prevail. And where anarchy prevails, individual survival or progress is jeopardised. But if proper communal standards are essential to avoid anarchy, it should also be recognised that proper communal standards of conduct require shared moral beliefs. These are trying times for decent human living. The fact that there is so much trouble around us point to the absence of adequate moral values.

    We are witnessing the negative impact of the erosion of shared moral beliefs and standards across the land. It is not just in terms of divergent religious or ethnic values. Indeed, deep down their roots, every religious or traditional value system has important shared beliefs about the sanctity of life, about the good of communal living, about the care of the offspring. And communities still survive and make progress because the majority of their members accept and respect the primacy of moral values and principles. Morality is an internalised private cop, which if completely abandoned will spell doom for all. In spite of the odds, we still have generalised shared values about the wrongness of kidnapping and armed robbery just as we do about the immorality of corruption.

    The more insidious agent of moral and value conflict has to do with the inequalities caused by disparities in access to good education. In the normative sense, education refers to two—narrow and broad—processes. In the narrow sense, we may see education as the process of bringing up the youth, training and instructing them for particular—whatever—ends. Broadly, it is the development of a person’s awareness, the transformation and regulation of emotions, wants, and attitudes. To be educated in this sense means more than to be trained for a job. It is to be brought up for good citizenship.

    Education is a value; an educated person is an improved person and the end-product of an educational system is a desirable product. Education, in this sense, prepares one for a wholesome life and for living well, which does not necessarily mean materially well. Obviously, then, formal institutions of learning have a role to play in providing education in this sense but there is much more to it than formal institutions are capable of offering. In any case, a community or nation must come to terms with this sense of education because it is its most important resource as a social force.

    Let me suggest the following syllogism: To educate is to improve; every human person needs to be improved; hence every human person needs to be educated. I think there is a very important sense in which this is true. But there is one caveat or two. First, it has also been suggested that education can dehumanise in which case it does not improve because it cannot be both. We may deal with this by making a distinction between genuine and fake education, what Carter G. Woodson once referred to as mis-education. While genuine education improves, mis-education dehumanises.

    A second caveat has to do with the second premise of the syllogism: every human person needs to be improved. The question is by whom? And the answer is by self and the community. Self-improvement is certainly an obligation that everyone has to bear responsibility for. “I have been made; I will have to remake myself” is an important traditional axiom. But we know that the human being is wholly dependent at birth and this extends to the first seventeen to eighteen years of life. Some can gain independence earlier but not without enormous and debilitating struggle the scars of which sometimes permanently impair future development and progress. Therefore from infancy to adolescence every human person needs a community of fellow human beings to take responsibility for his or her education.

    The community has a genuine interest in educating its public to avoid a degeneration of its existence. Mwalimu Nyerere’s sagacious reasoning in this matter is instructive: The purpose of education, he observes, is to transmit from one generation to the next the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the society, and to prepare the young people for their future membership of the society and their active participation in its maintenance or development. Traditional communities paid serious attention to this important area of their responsibilities within the scope of the resources—tangible and intangible—available to them. The question we must ask ourselves is “how have our contemporary societies fared with regard to the discharge of this grave responsibility?” This will be the focus of attention next week.

  • Education as catalyst for progress

    Education is the bedrock of societal development. A society that fails to realise the importance of education has given its soul to mediocrity and backwardness. Their negative effects are inefficiency, slow-pace of development, and corruption.

    The most industrialised or developed nations in the world today have very high literacy levels among their citizens and such nations devote attention and invest huge sums of money in the advancement of knowledge and by extension the society.

    This cannot be said to be the case in Nigeria. Government and, of course, our parents do the direct opposite of what is obtainable in civilized nations: very little or no attention is given to the education of the youth in the country. The level attention given to education by successive governments in the country has impacted negatively on our society. With students paying higher fees to acquire tertiary education, it remains to be seen how the myriad of problems bedeviling our society as a result of illiteracy will be solved. If adequate attention is given to the education sector by government, parents and teachers, the nation’s pace of development will increase in leap.

    Eight years ago, one needed, on the average, less than N15,000 per session to pay one’s way through a four-year course in the university, and even lesser in polytechnics and college of education. This amount included tuition, accommodation and other miscellaneous charges in faculty and department.

    However, in today’s Nigeria, the same amount of money is one-twelfth of the tuition fees for a session in any higher institution. Added to this is the high cost of books and other educational materials needed. To run a Master’s program in the university these days, a lot of money is required. Some Master’s courses go for as high as N300,000 or even more.

    Apart from the high cost of education in Nigeria, the problem of educational indiscipline is another factor affecting the sector negatively. These days, schools have been confronted by problems of indiscipline among parents, teachers and students. If some parents are well-disciplined, they will not give money to examiner to get their children pass examination.

    If our teachers want development for our nation, collecting money from students to grade them higher in examination must be stopped. And if students are well disciplined, they will see virtue in the habit of reading and not paying money to pass exams.

    Indiscipline has done more harm than good to education in this country; it has resulted in poor academic performance in schools. As a result of this problem, many students have abandoned their studies to engage in malpractice. This is done with the assistance of parents and teachers.

    It is hoped that necessary measures will be introduced by government to stem the rising tide of education fees in Nigeria. Indiscipline in education must also be reduced, if it cannot be totally eradicated, to pave the way for quality education and a well literate citizenry, which will in turn cause development in our society.

    Mabel, 400-Level Information Management Technology, FUTO

  • ID scam rocks Ebonyi Ministry of Education

    A human rights group based in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, Centre for Transparency and Justice (CTJ), has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences (ICPC) and other security agencies over alleged embezzlement of secondary schools’ Identity Card fund in the state.

    Briefing journalists in Abakaliki yesterday, the Coordinator of the group, Comrade Jerry Chukwu, said the office in the last six months received about seven different petitions from Parents Teachers Associations (PTA) of secondary schools across the state over alleged extortion and embezzlement of funds from secondary school students in the state by staff of the Ministry of Education.

    The human rights activist said that the first petition it received some time last year revealed that the Association had written to the group alerting them of an alleged plan by the state’s Ministry of Education to impose the sum of N500 on all secondary school students for what it described as Ebonyi Secondary School Identity Card.

    Out of over 200 secondary schools in the state that have paid the money since last year, the ministry has allegedly only issued the Identity Card to only four schools.

    “Worrisome again is that over 5000 Senior Secondary School students that paid the money took their SSCE last year and have left the school without the ID card. What happens to the money they paid?” the group asked.

    When contacted, the State Commissioner for Education, Mr. Chibueze Agbo, who confirmed the collection of N250 per student for the identity card by his ministry, noted that the extra N50 principals are collecting is for administrative fee.

    “Yes, we are collecting N250 per secondary school student for their identity card. The principals decided that I should collect N50 each from the N250, but I refused because I don’t need the money.

    “Rather, I asked the principals to collect the money as their administrative fee. We have not committed any financial crime; they can go ahead and petition the governor, EFCC and ICPC.

    “If Governor Martin Elechi decides to drop me as Commissioner tomorrow, I will simply thank him and go home. Since I became commissioner, it has been one petition to another but I’m not bothered about what they are doing.”

     

  • Tertiary education in Yobe

    If education is the locomotive of the modern society, higher education is the oil that propels and sustains that engine. Higher educational institutions produce the teachers that teach our kids at the lower levels of the educational ladder, the engineers that build our roads, the doctors and nurses that treat the sick, the architects that design our houses, the agricultural extension workers that teach us new ways to nourish and improve our crops, and so on. So a boost in tertiary education is sure to trigger multiplier effects in all facets of our lives.

    Nations of the West and the so-called Asian Tigers were able to get to their present developmental stages because of their investment in mid-level, hands-on vocational and technical education. If history is any guide; that is the path we should tread in Nigeria as well.

    But how much attention is tertiary education receiving in our states, especially in northern states that struggle against a historical disadvantage in western education? I have read many persuasive articles about the spectacular transformation of Yobe State University from the educational backwater to the fastest growing university in the north and one of the best equipped and best funded in the country. This fact piqued my curiosity about how other institutions of higher learning are faring in the state.

    I am concerned because we have a tendency in Nigeria to give disproportionate attention to universities in our higher education policies. The elitism that such policies produce is responsible for the decline in enrolment in polytechnics, colleges of education, schools of health technology, schools of agriculture, etc. But we need these institutions not just to produce middle-level, hands-on technical manpower for our industries and civil service, but to take the pressure away from our already overpopulated universities.

    I was pleasantly relieved to discover that Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State is acutely aware of this, and has devoted the same amount of attention to other institutions of higher learning in the state that he has devoted to raising Yobe State University to its current enviable status. There is probably no better evidence for this than the fact that Yobe State has gone on record as one of the first states in the country to approve and implement the new salary scale for lecturers of the State College of Education and State Polytechnic called CONPCASS.

    This policy seeks to bridge the parity of esteem between university lecturers and their counterparts in polytechnics and colleges of education that has been the source of so much resentment and friction for years. If we claim to equally value other institutions of higher learning as we value universities, there is no better way to show that than to incentivize working in these other institutions. I am enormously impressed that Governor Gaidam has recognized this. The wild acclaim that his approval and implementation of the CONPCASS has provoked among the academic staff of state’s polytechnic and college of education is well-deserved.

    It isn’t just in the welfare of staff of the state polytechnic and college of education that Governor Gaidam has demonstrated even-handedness in his higher education policies; he has shown commitment to the physical and intellectual uplift of all of the state’s tertiary educational institutions. For instance, through his policies, the Mai Idris Alooma Polytechnic, the state’s only polytechnic located in the governor’s hometown of Gaidam, has been accredited by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), a feat many older polytechnics are still struggling to achieve. Many of the school’s lecturers have also been sent to Malaysian and UK universities to acquire advanced degrees in their fields.

    In his commitment to diversify higher education in the state, Governor Gaidam also upgraded the erstwhile School of Midwifery to a full-fledged college of nursing and midwifery, which he renamed the “Dr. Shehu Sule College of Nursing and Midwifery.” The upgrade is not just in name, it is also in substance and scope. Many Yobe indigenes, who cannot or did not wish, for various reasons, to find admission in university medical schools turn to this school, which has become a rich source of much-needed mid-level medical personnel for the state.

    The Yobe State College of Agriculture in Gujba has also received focused attention from the Gaidam administration in recent time. For instance, the government not long ago constructed and equipped a veterinary clinic for the school to help facilitate cutting-edge agricultural research. The Chemistry and Biology laboratories of the school have also been furnished and equipped to enviable standards. So are the school’s metal and wood workshops. Similarly, machinery shades have been erected in the school, and the quarters where the school’s academic and non-academic staff lives have been tastefully renovated. Realizing that the comfort of students is central to the success of education, especially one as critical as agricultural education, the governor also constructed a well-conceived male hostel and equipped it with first-class bedding materials.

    These and many other enviable strides that the college has recorded in the past few years have resulted in its getting accreditation for its programmes in Forestry Technology, Animal Health and Production, Agricultural Technology, and Fisheries Technology by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). In the light of the renewed confidence that the school has gathered consequent upon its improved infrastructure and the intellectual preparedness of its students and staff—which are attested to by its NBTE accreditation—it has applied to the Board to start HND programmes in six agriculture-related courses to commence next academic session. For a state that is defined by its heavy reliance on agriculture for daily sustenance, the attention the government has given to this college is worthy of praise. Of course, more needs to be done in the coming years to improve the standing of the school.

    My research shows that other tertiary institutions in the state such asthe Umar Suleiman College of Education in Gashua, the School of Health Technology in Nuguru, the College of Administration and Basic Studies in Potiskum, and the Atiku Abubakar College of Legal and Islamic Studies in Nguru have received and continue to receive varying degrees of attention from the state government—with some more room for improvement.

    In addition to improving the standards of its own tertiary educational institutions, the Yobe State government also sponsors indigenes of the state for a special one-year remedial studies program at the University of Maiduguri. The intent of the program is to groom the state’s ill-prepared indigenes for admission into universities in the country. The program has helped young Yobe State indigenes with a potential for success in university education but who do not have stellar “O” level qualification to get into universities.

    It’s heartening that a state governor is bucking a general Nigerian trend: he is not paying exclusive attention to universities at the expense of other institutions of higher learning. That is reassuring. As the governor has said, education is the currency of today’s economy. With his commitment to continue to improve the sector and give the state’s children the best education possible, Yobe seems certain to rise and become the pride not just of its people but of all Nigerians as well.

    • Isa writes from Gashu’a Yobe State

     

  • Fashola seeks partnership on education

    Fashola seeks partnership on education

     

    Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has urged individuals, clubs and corporate bodies to partner with the government in the provision of social amenities that could aid quality education.

    He made the call on Wednesday at the formal commissioning of Dr. Lucas Memorial High School’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, built by Techno Oil Limited in Lagos.

    The governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mr. Wale Akanni, said such partnership was very necessary.

    “This will help in turning around the dwindling fortunes of education in the state,’’ he said, restating that provision of quality education was part of his administration’s 10-point agenda.

    According to Fashola, the biggest investment anyone could make in his community was in the area of education and any nation that ignored this was programming its human resources for failure.

    “Investment in education is invariably a necessary tool to bring about social, economic and political transformation.

    “I have no doubt in my mind that Techno Oil Limited belongs to the crop of transformational organisations, rather than transactional organisations.

    “The firm has demonstrated what corporate governance and social responsibility of individuals should be by contributing its quota through the construction of a modern ICT centre for the school within its sphere of influence,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the governor as saying at the gathering.

    The Managing Director, Techno Oil Limited, Mr. Tony Onyeama, said the company had so far spent over N200 million on its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects since it started business 15 years ago.

     

  • Four-year education plan: Fed Govt presents report tomorrow

    The Federal Government has recorded some successes in its four-year strategic plan for the development of the education sector, it was learnt yesterday.

    Minister of Education Prof. Ruqqayatu Ahmed Rufai’ said this at a briefing in Abuja ahead of the presentation tomorrow. She said the report has also identified challenges the implementation agencies may face in the implementation of the strategic plan.

    She said the four-year strategic plan for the development of the education sector (2011-2015) was unveiled in May.

    The Education Minister said the plan represents the education component of the transformation agenda and the ministry’s approach to actualising President Goodluck Jonathan’s agenda.

    Prof. Rufai’ categorised the challenges facing the sector into six focal areas, noting that strategies for addressing them were identified as well as the agencies and groups for implementation.

    She said: “It is for the purpose of ensuring that implementation takes place as and when due that the implementation task teams were set up for each of the focal areas. Their responsibility is to liaise with each of the implementation agencies so that they can monitor their progress and identify the challenges they may be facing.”

     

  • Students to sue Okorocha over free education

    The National Association of Imo State Students (NAISS) may sue Governor Rochas Okorocha for allegedly deceiving them with his administration’s free education programme.

    Rising from its meeting at the weekend in Awka, the Anambra State capital, the Senate of the association, led by its President, Comrade Celestine Uzoma, said what the governor is giving them is an educational aid and not free education.

    The students said Okorocha deceived the world when he announced at the Hero’s Square in Owerri, the state capital, that he had issued cheques to traditional rulers for indigenous students to collect under the free education programme.

    They added that the announcement was false.

    The students said: “If education was free, why are students paying N50,000 acceptance fee and an additional N20,000, which accompanies the so-called free education cheque?

    “There is nothing like free education in the state. The governor is dodging the bursary allowance as a state under the Niger Delta development Commission (NDDC). If he is offering free education, he should redefine it and also involve students’ leaders before implementation. This is because it affects us.”