Nigeria is toying with its future educationally – BUK alumni president

What BUK alumni is all about? Well, BUK alumni like the name implies is an association or collection of individuals who have passed through Bayero University Kano. The association has been late in coming, so to say, but late is better than never. The university started operation with 10 students in1964 under Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), […]

What BUK alumni is all about?
 Well, BUK alumni like the name implies is an association or collection of individuals who have passed through Bayero University Kano. The association has been late in coming, so to say, but late is better than never. The university started operation with 10 students in1964 under Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, more than half a century ago but it was only in June last year that the management deemed it fit to summon a stakeholders’ meeting at which a committee of 17 persons headed by Alhaji Muhammad Mustapha Inuwa, formed the alumni in December last year. So far, we are trying to track down our members because we are scattered all over the country. We hope graduates of BUK will respond to the clarion call and contribute their quota to the development of the university because when you look at the situation now it is not as it was when we were there. Government for sure cannot sponsor education alone, alumni are a veritable platform by which past students can look back and contribute to their former school.
All over the world, alumni are playing significant roles in improving the quality of the institutions they attended. When we visited BUK in January this year, we noticed a lot of developments; the university has grown so fast and therefore we want to also contribute our quota to the development of the institution.
 
In which areas does the association intend to assist the institution?
First of all, we have studied the strategic plan of the university; we have seen where it performed well and its weakness and we have seen where we can come in to assist. We have already mapped out our short, medium and long term plans for the institution. Like transportation from Kabuga to the new site of the university along Gwarzo road, we intend to provide buses. Already, a donor has promised to provide two 35-seater buses which we will hand over to the university to assist students. We are considering building a 2,000 capacity lecture theatre and we also intend to provide internet facility so that we can improve learning among students and even their lecturers.
Learning today is on the cyber space, with it you can take courses from Harvard University because cyber space has made it easy now to interact globally. So we want to look at that area to see where we can come in and we want to also improve school recreation and so on.
 
The standard of education is said to be declining in the country, why do you think this is so?
Well, first of all, we have had challenges in virtually all sectors of human endeavour including health, education and infrastructure and so on and I believe the collapse of the totality of the system is due to lack of plan. Of course we do annual plan; do the budget and defend it before the national and state assemblies as the case maybe, but as it is we have since independence had rolling plans. The annual plan will be there but a long term plan will help you to be focused. But as at now we don’t have such plans.
The introduction of Universal Basic Education also contributed to the collapse of education at the basic level because we introduced the programme but we didn’t plan for provision of enough teachers to handle the situation. Certainly, without good teachers, we are toying with the future of the country. In a nutshell the programmes are huge and the resources are dwindling. Secondly, the collapse has to do with lack of proper attention to education at primary and secondary school levels. The students are many and they are not well taught in the schools; it is what we refer to as garbage in, garbage out. Everybody is passing from primary to secondary school, so we must concentrate on providing quality education at primary and secondary levels.
Government must gear up and ensure that all citizens are educated because an uneducated person is dangerous in a society. It is good to spend money in other sectors but we must pay serious attention to education because it’s the backbone of every development. I believe funding has to be improved upon and I also believe that those who attend higher education should be made to pay something for the development of education in the country. And to me only primary and secondary education should be made free and compulsory for government to provide but tertiary education should not be free. The idea of making university education free does not even arise because if your parents want you to become somebody in future they should pay for that.
So we have to look at the collapse of education from different perspectives because it is for the community, the teachers, the government and the students themselves and that is why the alumni is coming in to contribute its quota.
There are lots of funds given to SUBEB for the development of education at primary level but the contract system is our major problem because that is what is killing education at that level. The project that cost N100 million if you quantify it well is not more than N25 million but the rest of the money has been shared among government officials manning the system. The contracts are seriously inflated. Although government has not yet attained the 26 per cent as recommended by the UNESCO but if the little fund invested in the sector is adequately utilised, I believe we will develop. Other countries are developing the sector because the funding is reasonable so Nigeria must improve the funding and map out strategies for tackling corruption in the system.
If we want quality education we must spend money. Now that there is attention given to the National Teachers Institute where our teachers are being trained for the NCE, I think we can change the situation for the better. We should have the best people in the teaching profession than in any other sector because they are the bedrock of development of the society; without them no sector can progress.
 
Finally what is your reaction to the recent high failure in WAEC examination?
It is a disaster. We got independence in 1960 and Nigeria was then flying its flag high in the area of education but few years after we are scoring 73 per cent failure in WAEC examination, this is to tell you that there is disaster looming and we need to do something urgent to curtail the situation.
 Government is expending huge fund on education but there is massive failure which means something is wrong along the line. It is natural when you do a wise investment you will see the result but the resources are not put where they are needed; hence we don’t see the results at all. I think the FG should declare a state of emergency on education. And if Nigeria wants to maintain its pride of place in the community of nations, the funding must improve to 26 per cent as recommended by the UNESCO.