Artist calls for overhaul of art education in Nigeria

One of Nigeria’s contemporary artists, Mazi Dennis Mazi, has said Nigeria’s art educational system should endeavour to keep abreast of the world’s digital and technological innovations. “Our basic schools, even up to the universities, lack current tools that facilitate upward and expansive art education in the digital age. Nigerian universities are still using a pre-colonial […]

One of Nigeria’s contemporary artists, Mazi Dennis Mazi, has said Nigeria’s art educational system should endeavour to keep abreast of the world’s digital and technological innovations.

“Our basic schools, even up to the universities, lack current tools that facilitate upward and expansive art education in the digital age. Nigerian universities are still using a pre-colonial scheme of work to teach today’s learners.

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“Imagine using 1980 typewriting devices to connect or share data across the world today! The potholes of incessant strikes in our various schools today have left much to be worried about in the education of our upcoming crop of, not just artists and creatives, but also the Nigerian children at large,” the author said.

He said the government is not doing enough to ensure students that can’t afford to travel overseas for their education get the best form of education in the country, “Nigeria is divided between the richest politicians, who send their kids abroad for better education, rich business people, who can afford expensive private schools for their wards, and very poor people that clutter government schools that are both in infrastructural and intellectual decadence.

“The way Nigerian Schools and education have been left to themselves has sponsored the expectation that the only place that good things can come from is abroad.”

He said the government must brace up to solve the issue that has come to puncture the proper education of her citizens, “By no means should our government take upward education of her youths for granted, because that will amount to breeding a generation of backward people, for a life of servitude, slavery, and hardship amidst vast blessings of God and nature in our midst.”