Planning to fail
Without asking for statistical data, one finds it easy, given the state of public schools in the country, to assume that most of the few candidates who obtained credit passes in five subjects including English and Mathematics were more likely to come from private-owned secondary schools; leaving public schools to take the lion’s share from […]
Without asking for statistical data, one finds it easy, given the state of public schools in the country, to assume that most of the few candidates who obtained credit passes in five subjects including English and Mathematics were more likely to come from private-owned secondary schools; leaving public schools to take the lion’s share from the colossal rate of failure. In other places, people plan to succeed. But in Nigeria, it is other way round as government and individuals plan to fail. We consider the immediate and remote factors that collectively account for the unpleasant rate of failure to be part of the deliberate and strategic plans orchestrated by government to ensure that a result that is as heart breaking as 98.2% failure is attained.
The basic and secondary levels of the education system in Nigeria have been left to swim in pools of problems for a very long time. The two stages of education are critically bedeviled with technical problems ranging from dearth of trained and qualified teachers to inadequate provision of necessary learning facilities. Where there are libraries, there are no up-to-date and relevant textbooks.
The phenomenon is even more serious at the basic level which is the foundation stage upon which other levels of education are built. A situation where a teacher is asked to teach subjects other than that in which he received training and consequently specialized is a sure short-cut to very poor SSCE results. Early this year, I was one of the two resource persons at a workshop organized by the FCT Education Resource Centre for Islamic Studies teachers; the other person being Hajiya Aisha Lemu. During the question and answer session, I was amazed by one of the questions asked by a participant. The participant asked to know why some of his colleagues, during break/prayer time, offered two instead of four raka’ats to observe Zhur prayer. The question revealed the ignorance of the participant about the basics of the religion he claimed to be teaching as a school subject, which theoretically disqualifies him from being an Islamic Studies teacher. When I asked the participant about his area of specialization, he reluctantly answered that he is a graduate of Yoruba language. Little wonder then that he had no knowledge of salat us-safar. While it may professionally be wrong to ask even a graduate of Arabic language to teach Islamic Studies, and vice-versa; graduates of engineering and mathematics are teachers of biology and chemistry in many schools today.
Parents, too, have their own share of the blame. Many are busy chasing money day and night to all corners of the world without sparing time to monitor their children’s academic activities in school and at home. Like parents, teachers especially those in public schools, have also become grossly un-committed to their duties. Up to mid and late 1970s, graduates of primary and secondary schools in Nigeria compared favorably with their counterparts in other parts of the world.
The quality in the education of that blessed period was simply the result of unreserved commitment by a generation of teachers who though had lower qualifications than possessed today but yet remained dedicated to their jobs. Government, too, must remember the need to make the welfare of teachers a matter of priority. Salaries, allowances including leave bonus and promotions must be paid or given promptly.
The 26% budgetary allocation recommended by UNESCO is a reality that government must confront. Corruption in the civil service has not allowed even the little that is currently appropriated for education to be expended for purposes it was meant. Is it not ridiculous that government found it convenient to inject N620billion in to eight ailing banks but finds it difficult to use less than that to save the entire education system in Nigeria from collapse?
We consider the threat by some state governors and/or their commissioners of education that school principals who produce poor SSCE results would be sanctioned as a brazen attempt to intimidate such principals in to abetting examination malpractices in their schools, in the bid to avoid any sanctions. We remind such governors and their commissioners that there is no magic to producing beautiful SSCE results if learning and teaching facilities are not provided in schools.
To stem the alarming rate of failure, government must ensure that laboratories are well equipped; libraries are stocked with relevant books; trained and qualified teachers are employed and their welfare prioritized; and corruption ‘edited’ out in the management of funds in the education sector. Unless these measures are genuinely taken, it may entail that we are still at the drawing board planning for the worst failure rate of candidates in future SSCEs. May Allah (SWT) grant our leaders a true model of conscience to realize and appreciate the fact that sound education is the bedrock of development with its foundation rooted in the basic and secondary levels of the system, amin.