Education is the means for building ones capacity towards productivity. It is the reason why there was plenty of hope when Professor Angela Miri was appointed a commissioner to oversee the portfolio of education in Plateau, during the first tenure of the administration of Jonah David Jang. As a professor it was believed that, at least, the woes of the sector in the life of Plateau State will begin to fall. On May 29, when Miri handed over that ministry to a successor there were no clear cut achievements.

The pyramids of challenges left behind include the issue of the curriculum that needed to be up-graded. The curriculum of public primary schools remains a piece of colonial junk that needs upgrading. The curriculum is such that children are just taught how to recognize the alphabet without being taught how to recognize their sounds as it is in private schools. The result is that an outrageously high percentage passes out without learning how to read and write. Those who manage to learn to read and write do so by chance. It could be that their parents notice it and worked towards overcoming it or a result of sheer accident. In the end, this problem is carried on to higher levels of education with accompanying problems like examination malpractices, cult groups who threaten lecturers for marks to see them scale through and the issue of sex for marks or marks for sex.

Since the sector has suffered financial and supervisory negligence over the decades, the result is that the heads of the various schools are compelled to find financial solutions to enable the schools to run. Since there is little or no supervision in the schools, the heads end up abusing what initially was meant to be sensible intention. This has led to a situation where classes are over populated far above the right student/teacher ratio, since the more students the school has the more the money that comes in. It also has led to a situation where students don’t get repeated even when there are obvious indications that such an action needs to be taken. This is because it isn’t wise to drive away “customers.” As a result, student’s complacency endures. The normal criteria of admission into secondary schools where candidates are tested to ensure that they can read simple passages prior to admission are not adhered to anymore for fear of losing the fees admitted students will bring. A primary school pupil that can read shows that he is prepared for secondary school education and will make  adequate use of the opportunity. Having a collection of such students in the class also creates a competitive and healthy learning environment that encourages the teacher to give in more.

The Ministry Of Education also has the duty of supervising the private schools to ensure that they continue to adhere to the guidelines set by it. But the nonchalance of successive administrations has led to the establishment of miracle examination centers where examination success is guaranteed as long as they pay required fees. The result is that it has led to serious lack of discipline in schools where students can insult teachers and walk out on them, knowing that there is a miracle examination center that will provide an avenue. No one talking about reforming the public school system can be taken seriously if he fails to tackle the criminal practice of miracle examination centers.

Public schools have also become notorious for their disregard to time. In private schools, lessons start on the first day of resumption. In contrast, students of public schools often dither on when to start going to school, claiming that lessons don’t often start on the first day. In the end weeks are often wasted.  This excludes lessons lost as a result of teachers taking leave of absence for frivolous reasons like attending to countless burials. This usually becomes the reason why public schools don’t often conclude their syllabuses leading to failure at external examinations.

Professor Miri also did not remember to address the issue of the right training for teachers. Nobody would have been in a better position to observe that the government pays its staff better than those of majority of private schools who, despite this gives better results than their counterparts in the public school system. Professor Miri ought to have told Governor Jang that with increasing lack of faith in our schools, there is the need for aptitude tests when teachers are recruited to ensure that the best material are given the chance. This is the only way we can reward hard work and send a message to those who believe that Nigeria is a place where anything goes. In contrast however, successful candidates for teaching vacancies are those referred to the teachers’ commission by politicians without regard to competence.

Our education administrators ought to have been conscious of the fact that China and India that are among the fastest growing nations toady are said to turn out larger and more brilliant graduates than most western nations. They ought to have remembered that Nigeria wishes to be among the twentieth most developed nations in the year 2020 and that will not happen if the ambition is left to the federal government alone.

High wrote from Jos, Plateau State