I recently encountered Fareed Zakaria, the internationally acclaimed author and famous host of GPS Show on CNN at Airtel’s Night of Influence in Lagos. Many years ago, I was an avid follower of Zakaria’s seminal thoughts as a columnist and my week was never complete without Newsweek Magazine. Meeting this renowned journalist was therefore like realising a very long wish. Zakaria who attended Indian schools and colleges before moving to the United States exemplifies home grown success. So when he spoke, he addressed the heart of the matter. He also directed his attention to Nigerian leaders: “take charge of your country’s future by investing heavily in the education sector in order to provide quality foundation for Nigerian children” he warned in his opening remarks.
Zakaria, to my mind, could not have said anything better. He spoke the minds of a good number of our country men and women. The central theme of his message dealt with what we should have known all the while but erroneously neglected. But he again admonished the political elite warning that rather than “subsidising the present or buying votes, leaders should invest in education, invest in infrastructure, invest in healthcare and invest in the future. There is so much human talent in Africa and in Nigeria. These talents need to be unlocked through education. It is an irony that countries experiencing high GDP growth are countries without natural resources. Look at Taiwan. What they have is typhoon….they do not have any natural resources; yet, they have managed to emerge as one of the countries with the highest GDP growth rate”, he had said.
In another breath, Zakaria also drew attention to the United States which currently exports human capital in almost all spheres of human endeavour because the country had invested heavily in education, research and training.
For a moment, my mind gravitated between two possible realities: a future Nigeria that is secure, stable, investment-friendly and prosperous and another Nigeria that is the exact opposite of the first and I just wondered. No nation, no matter how wishful she thinks, can just wake up to greatness. Greatness, either for nations or individuals is a product of great planning, thinking, focus, concentration and preparation. As Zakaria spoke, I was agitated by one question: where are our own Zakarias? And how can we make meaning from his undisputable gospel on education?
Like most Nigerians, I know that our education sector is in very serious trouble. Apart from our distorted educational policies, outdated curriculum, acute dearth of infrastructure, many have also argued that our students are not learning the right things or are not learning problem solving skills and solution generation fit enough to address our peculiar needs. At other times, many of them drop out long before they get the opportunity to understand why they are in school in the first place.
At the secondary school level for instance, the assessment is damming. According to Alliance for Excellent Education, Nigerian secondary school students’ academic performance fluctuates from mediocre to poor. On the other hand, only 40 per cent of university students eventually earn a degree. A good percentage of those who earn the degree cannot think creatively and thus are unemployable. Sadly, international ratings of Nigerian university degrees are abysmally low in international labour market because our students are more often out of school due to incessant crises.
For any serious country therefore, these statistics are grim and as a people, we cannot afford to stand aloof. It is convenient to blame government, policy implementers and school administrators but it is also important to note that we cannot talk about school failures and dropouts without looking at how we treat our children. About 70 per cent of Nigeria’s children live in poverty, one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the entire developing world and this seriously hinders the quest for knowledge. Research also shows that young Nigerians spend almost 40 hours a week watching television whose content centres principally on violence and mind-corrupting programmes. This is compounded by the fact that some of our leaders across board view artistic and intellectual pursuits with scorn and disdain.
In Finland, there is a lesson for Nigeria. On all the international education measuring standards where Nigeria did so badly, Finland came tops. According to the World Economic Forum, Finland has one of the most competitive economies in the world and this is one of the reasons for their excellent outing in education. They also have another advantage: the country offers high quality and free early childhood education. The most interesting part of Finland’s success story is their collective believe that “education is an investment in their economy, in their healthcare and in their environment, which is why they provide free college and graduate school to all eligible applicants”.
But how did we get here? And how can we escape from this accident waiting to happen? The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo once said that “he who fails to prepare, prepares to fail”. Are we failing to prepare and therefore preparing to fail? I believe education still holds the key and we must seriously pay attention to Zakaria’s admonition.
Ghana, our next door neighbour represents what determination, hard work and planning could do to a serious nation. That country’s tragic story of economic recession is well known. However, at independence in1957, Ghana had what she had called an expanded basic education that was world-class. But by 1980, Ghana’s education sector was in ruins: dilapidated classrooms, fewer desks, no teachers and in several instances, a single textbook was shared by an entire class. Then shortly after, government embarked on an education reform programme that almost immediately increased enrolment, improved access, learning outcomes and better education system management. In fact, government went in search of partners and donor agencies and collaborated with them to strengthen private education.
Today in Ghana, there is a thriving Teacher Training, Information Communications Technology and Technical/Vocational education systems. And our children gladly apply to their premium university, the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra where they are happy paying discriminatory fees. But this stable education landscape in Ghana is a product of major and consistent policy initiatives in education. And to read that the country is inspired with the hope that education remains the only investment in reducing Ghana’s high level of poverty is particularly humbling for me.
This generation of Nigerian leaders have a duty to ensure that the good old days of Nigeria’s superb education returns. I believe that the next generation will judge today’s leaders on this score because the future depends largely on education. Part of this revolution should begin with greater funding for our public schools. Secondly, I think it is high time we restructured our curriculum and learning environment so as to make scholarship interesting and pleasurable. A critical element of the reform should include providing qualitative primary and secondary education free and compulsory to every Nigerian, including the physically challenged. We must therefore revisit the Individual with Disabilities Education Act if we wish to achieve the Nigeria of our dream. And if we all desire a great country with a strong middle class and an employable youth, then we must all appreciate that education is the only way to our collective aspirations.
• Peterside, a member of the House of Representatives is Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream)
