I
am one of those Nigerians whose support for the incessant strike
actions by the Academic Staff Union of Universities is qualified. Of
course, I am in total agreement that the welfare of university teachers
could be better and that standards in our universities have been on a
progressive decline for years but I hold two things against ASUU’s
industrial actions.
Having embarked on strike for over two
decades, I frankly think that ASUU needs to find more creative ways of
dealing with the continuous renegade attitude of successive governments
to agreements. When you have situations where students spend one or more
extra sessions in school on account of industrial actions, I opine that
ASUU’s strike actions are fast becoming part of the same ailment that
they are meant to cure.
Secondly, and perhaps
more importantly, I shudder at the suggestion that these strike actions
are towards improving the fallen standard of education in Nigeria.
Again, there is no doubt that the education sector in Nigeria is in need
of urgent intervention but I find hints that the solution lies more
urgently at the tertiary level as suggested by a lot of people rather
curious. It comes across to me as a veritable indication of our tendency
to treat the symptoms of a difficulty rather than its cause.
Even
if university teachers in Nigeria were to suddenly become the best paid
in the world and our campuses become blessed with the best facilities
possible, the standard of education in the country would remain parlous
if the wrong quality of students get admitted into the institutions.
If
things get so bad that we do not even have enough suitable candidates
passing matriculation examinations into higher institutions, what would
be the pride of our universities and their management if Nigeria ever
gets to that position? What would the victories that ASUU would have won
amount to when hundreds of thousands of our children are unable to
attain university education because they cannot make a success of their
secondary education or when those who are admitted are half-baked school
certificate leavers who have manipulated their way to secure university
education?
Although we do not seem to realise it, Nigeria is
not too far from this post as we speak. Consider the results that school
certificate and matriculation examinations have continued to show and
you will get what I mean. This year, only 529, 4,25 of the 1, 692, 435
candidates that sat for the West African School Certificate Examination
had the basic five credits(including English and Mathematics) needed for
admission into higher institutions of study. That is a mere 31 per
cent!
The rate of failure in the 2014 Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examinations is equally alarming. Of a little over one
million candidates that sat for the Paper and Pencil and Dual Based
Tests this year, only 47 scored above 250 while over 715,000 of the
number did not attain the 170 mark out of a possible 400! However, there
are worse things than the mass failure that we see at this level.
Over
10 million children of school age are believed to be out of primary and
secondary schools in Nigeria, in spite of the Universal Basic Education
Act of 2004 which makes education free and compulsory for the first
nine years of a child’s educational career. Nigeria is one of the
countries with the worst records of enrolment, retention and completion
of basic education in the world. The truth of the situation is that if
something is not done promptly, these 10 million children and so many
others will not attend higher schools whether ASUU goes on strike or
not.
This is why I think that the stakeholders in the education
sector must come together to fight for the revival of the educational
fortunes of the country rather than pick up individual battles which do
nothing to improve the general outlook. They must force the hands of
government at all levels to pay more attention to the education of
future generations of Nigerians.
Most importantly, there is a
need to take another look at the welfare of teachers across board. As we
speak, many states in Nigeria have yet to start the payment of the
agreed Teachers Salary Scale to their teachers. These governments still
treat teachers like social workers whose rewards “are in heaven” as is
commonly said in the country. To treat a group of professionals whose
duties involve the use of a wide body of knowledge about the subject
being taught and the most effective ways to teach that subject to
students at every particular level of education is to mortgage the
future of our country.
This is why we find second and third
class individuals who have no business imparting knowledge on anyone at
various levels of education in Nigeria and the mess they make of it is
what reflects in the level of failure in examinations like those quoted
earlier.
The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for
Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, Mr. Jibrin Paiko, last
year raised the alarm that more than half of the teachers in some
Northern states cannot read or write; what manner of pupils are such
teachers going to produce?
In the interest of the country
therefore, we must take a serious look at the quality of teaching at all
levels of education but with more emphasis on the primary and secondary
levels. We must quickly design a system that rewards good teachers and
dispenses with bad ones promptly.
A corollary to this is the
need to pay attention to the training of teachers. Why do we no longer
have teacher colleges where people obtained Grade II certificates before
proceeding to the Colleges of Education for their National Certificates
in Education. Government should strengthen these levels of training
while the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria should take the
business of regulating the profession more seriously.
Then, we
must find a way to educate the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who
do not make good grades in their school certificates and matriculation
examinations. Technical and vocational education remain essential to the
development of any country and Nigeria could prepare its youths who are
daily turning to commercial motorcycle riding or lured into a myriad of
violent crimes.
As we move toward the 2015 elections, perhaps,
the most prominent word on the lips of Nigerians is change. However,
change, even if it happens, would be endured unless we give adequate
education to every generation of Nigerians living at any particular
time. It is the only investment with a sure interest.
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