The Federal Executive Council (FEC) admitted yesterday, the need to address fallen educational standards in Nigeria, as experts point the way forward.
“Today at council we discussed many issues but the most important was education. Members agreed that the fallen standard in education is so serious that we will need a ministerial retreat to look at all the issues. There are a lot of issues and all of them are crying for attention” Adamu Adamu, minister of education said.
Education data report published by the National Bureau Statistics in February 2016 shows that the country has a total enrolment of 23 million children in public primary schools with 574,579 teachers resulting in an average teacher to student ratio of 1 to 40 comparable to what is obtainable in most parts of Africa but twice higher than what is obtained in Europe and America and even most parts of Asia.
The high student teacher ratio means that most students in these classes are not getting enough attention from teachers since the classes are overcrowded. This poor attention is compounded by the fact that only 11 percent of teachers in public primary schools actually have an educational degree, while 56 percent have the minimum National Certificate of Education (NCE). The remaining 33 percent of teachers have other undefined qualifications.
“Education is the best economic policy in modern economies. Any country that has most of its workforce engaged in low skill, low income economic activity reaps low productivity and cannot be competitive in today’s digital, globalised economy. This boils down to the quality, nature and delivery of education from the very basic level to the very top” said Obiageli Ezekwesili at a recent education convention, in Lagos.
On the poor quality of graduates, experts have pointed to the poor infrastructure at universities and lack of opportunity to practise theories. “First is the issue of infrastructure and where students can practise the theories- unfortunately the industrial backbone has been very weak and the entire economy has been run as one big consumer market, dominated by imports from all over the world, especially China” said Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, former vice-chancellor, University of Lagos in an emailed note.
“Secondly, the institutions themselves need to be upgraded both for the humanware as well as the soft and hardware to enable the students study in a 21st Century environment. We have started to have “in-breeding” in our University System. This is anti-innovation and progress” Ibidapo-Obe said. It is refreshing then that the FEC on Wednesday stepped down a proposed road map for the education sector ,admitting that the dire state needed more than just a blue print.
Education minister, Adamu Adamu, who briefed journalists alongside Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman said Council discussed the lone issue of education and has decided to convene an inter-ministerial retreat in two weeks, where all the ministers will have the opportunity to contribute ideas to help revamp the sector.
These problems call for more than a roadmap but a complete overhaul of the sector Adamu said. “Initially we had prepared a blueprint but FEC felt the issues are beyond that because there are crises in all the areas of education, in out of school children, in technical education and training, in Information Communication Technology (ICT), in all the areas you can think of. Ministers are going to start talking to themselves and come out with solutions.
“There will be a ministerial retreat in the next two weeks to look at the issues and from there, we will take off in what we are doing” Adamu added.
Analysts have at different times called for the declaration of a state of emergency in the education sector, following the decline in quality of education and standards in schools across the country. He also addressed the issue of withdrawal of religious education in the curriculum of secondary schools, stating that it was mere rumours, contending that the social media had made it difficult by spreading falsehood.
“The issue of Christian religious knowledge that all the national media, social media took up and deceived even the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria because they believed it. I read in the papers that they asked the acting president to confirm, there is no truth in it at all.
“It was just somebody’s imagination, probably somebody who wishes to raise tension in the country after the Biafra issue and then the quit order given to some young people in the north so the person just followed suit trying to stoke the embers of religion. There is no truth whatsoever I repeat” he said.
The minister further explained that there was a policy in 2012 which was given effect in 2014 that is even before the advent of present administration. “One of the things I did as minister, was to speak to the National Council on Education, to disarticulate history from the social studies curricula because we believe we want our young people to know our history.
“You cannot know who you are without knowing who your ancestors were in the past. And the National Council of Education did accept and agree that the teaching and learning of CRK has been made compulsory for all Christian students and teaching and learning of Islamic studies is compulsory for all Muslim students” he added.
Elizabeth Archibong & Stephen Onyekwelu
