Peter Okebukola, a professor and chairman of Council, Crawford University, Faith City, Igbesa in this interview with KELECHI EWUZIE gives insight into topical education issues and steps to improve the sector. Excerpt:
Kindly assess the performance of the education sector in the country; what do you see as the way forward?
Indeed, quality is worsening on all fronts. Poor performance of the education sector on nearly all input, process, product and outcome indicators. High illiteracy rates, large number of children who are out of school, inadequacies in number and quality of teachers and poor quality of products from the school system are some of the numerous impediments to education contributing much to the growth of the economy.
The interesting point to note is that all national reports on education over the last 20 or more years have documented the scenario I just described, yet our pace of improvement has been snail slow.
To ensure that we hike performance of education, greater attention should turn to improving the delivery of education at all levels.
Mind you, it is not all about throwing in more money into the system. It is about all stakeholders- parents, students, teachers, school managers, you the media, religious leaders, examination bodies and the general public contributing in some form to improving efficiency, effectiveness, relevance and quality at all levels.
What steps should government take to better the education sector?
I believe we should not be talking about steps that government alone should take. We all have to be part of improving education and hence its contribution to growth. Most Newspapers devote six pages to sports every day and a few paragraphs to one or two pages to education a week!
What about parents? How many take the time to provide opportunity to learn at home for their children. The children are allowed to roam with friends after school, watching European league matches and chatting away on their instant messaging devices. The poor send their children to hawk wares after school.
Moving on to teachers, many do not inspire students and are willing to connive with invigilators to cheat during public examinations. What about school managers who receive funds from government? Tremendous leakage inhibits the money from impacting on the target areas needing improvement.
Since you want me to talk about government specifically, I will say that the necessary policy and practice environment should be provided for the delivery of quality education at all levels. I am not talking about federal government alone. State and local governments have their roles to play. We must invest more in education.
I will advise that you do not compare Nigeria with the countries you just listed. On many education indicators, we are better than these countries. I will be comfortable with Finland (Europe), Singapore (Asia) and the US (North America).
The growth potential of education in Nigeria is stifled by inability to faithfully implement national policy provisions. This is the long and short of the story. The inside elements of the story include poor quality of preparation of teachers; students poor attitude to work; depressed reading culture; poor teaching, learning and research environment and a host of socio-cultural factors such as religion, early marriage, low value placed on the power of education of boys (especially in the some eastern states) and of girls (especially in some northern states).
How would the right investment transform the curricular in the education sector?
It will lead to a re-awakening of the need to revise the curricula at all levels to strengthen those areas with low rating such as employment potential. This provides more justification for entrepreneurial studies at all levels.
What really is the Federal Government policy on education? Looking at the policy in question, do you think it is working?
Our National Policy on Education is one of the finest documents on education in Africa. It virtually covers all angles in the delivery of education. It is not working as envisioned in some areas because many are satisfied with flouting its provisions since the penalty for transgression is weak.
Looking at the issue critically, sir, how best do you think the Nigerian universities need to be managed, as an organisation?
Universities need to be in the hands of managers who can run the institution efficiently and prudentially manage resources. Such managers include Council, Vice-Chancellor and his or her Senate.
This means we should not be parochial and nepotistic in appointing the managers or subject such appointments to the vagaries of politics and religious affiliation. We also need to give the managers enough resources especially funds to run the universities and ruthlessly sanction those who are careless with such funds.
Is Federal Government’s allocation for education sufficient to fund development in the universities?
The level of funding is still far short of what is needed to restore the university system to its old glory. My estimate is that the universities need more than triple their current funding levels. It is my view that government alone cannot provide all the funds. The universities should be resourceful enough to explore others ways of securing additional funds to support government subvention.
Sir, with the preference of employers to hire graduates with foreign degrees to the detriment of graduates from our local universities, what does this portend for the development of the education and productive level in this country?
It is a crying shame that the quality of many (not all!) of the products of our universities is rather poor and employers will rightfully extract the best from the pool and in some cases elect to employ those with foreign degrees from North America and Europe.
Surely, it is a development that will hinder national productivity. The good news is that steps are being taken to address the problem through compulsory entrepreneurial studies programme in our universities and the tightening of admission process to select only the best from the secondary school system.
