An appraisal of public education in Nigeria

“The transmission of knowledge and the capacity to sustain excellence, to produce relevant research results and to offer the society convincing and intelligent social criticism has been dwindling rapidly in our universities. This has resulted in societal stagnation rather than national development.” – Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, Vice Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife
The above quote was sourced from a presentation delivered by the erudite professor of Preventive and Community Dentistry, Eyitope Ogunbodede at the First Rehoboth Dream Solid Foundation Annual Lecture 2018 edition which took place on 9 August at the Admiralty Conference Centre, Lagos. The paper titled “Public Education in the 21st Century: A Reappraisal of the Nigerian Education System since Independence,” generated a debate regarding the poor state of public education in the country.
The gist of Ogunbodede’s presentation is that Nigerian educational institutions at all levels must undergo critical reforms and restructuring to enable them make meaningful contributions to national development in the Twenty-first Century. Certainly, this is not the first time one of our brilliant and intellectually gifted academic has drawn attention of policy makers to the fact that with technology changing rapidly, and the world becoming increasingly knowledge based, education has emerged as a key determinant of a nation’s economic development. The truth is that a country with low educational standard can never join the league of industrialized nations.
As an observer and beneficiary of public education in Nigeria, one could assert that things have never been this bad with public primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in the country. Admittedly, it is not all bad news because the number of primary, secondary, and tertiary educational institutions have increased in the past four decades. These institutions have produced many brilliant students and outstanding teachers in the country. In the 1980s, Nigeria had 16 universities. Today, there are a total of 162 universities in Nigeria comprising 41 Federal, 47 State and 74 private, at various levels of development and growth, according to Ogunbodede. There is no state of the federation that does not have more than one university. So whilst we concede that progress has undoubtedly been made, serious question still remains about the quality of public education in Nigeria. A visit to any public primary, secondary, and tertiary institution will expose the level of decay and inadequacies of facilities. Yet, students are enrolled beyond the capacity of classrooms and other structures without a corresponding increase in the number of teachers. Budgetary allocation to public education is poor and on a downward trend in the past few years.
Lecturers in public universities are neglected because of inadequate funds for research, conferences, and capacity building workshops. We now have a situation where competent and dedicated university administrators are endangered species. Teachers and lecturers are poorly rewarded such that most people consider academic work as the job of last resort. That is why most teachers and lecturers engage in parallel time consuming occupations which undermine their performance. For public education to thrive, every aspect of the society must be involved. Education is the prime mover of any given society and a critical factor for improving the quality of human resources. Education, either in private or public institutions takes input from several factors of the society and gives outputs to these factors. These factors include but not limited to culture, human and natural resources, nation’s historical background, industrial development strategy and leadership amongst others. These factors must be of higher standard before Nigeria can have quality education. What a nation provides as inputs into education is what she gets as outputs. It is a case of garbage-in, garbage-out (GIGO). Each factor, though discrete are at the same time mutually interdependent with other factors. Thus, a progress within any factor on its own or indeed a combination of a limited number of factors will not give rise to national development. The chances of success will rather increase if all factors including education are married together with the precision of a good orchestra.
In order to have a high standard of public education, Nigeria must parade visionary leaders across the entire spectrum of the society. No nation can develop without visionary leaders. All things being equal, the probability of getting visionary leaders is higher in societies where the people are more educated and gifted than one peopled by dullards. Hence, the truism that nations get the leaders they deserve.
When the culture is poor and investment in human resources is low, Nigeria cannot have quality education. The standard of education will not be high when there is disjointed national development strategies and policies. Therefore, national development is not merely the function of economic conditions alone but arises from the total situation within the society. Have we ever asked ourselves why poor societies remain poor? It is because those societies have neglected the cultural dimension to economic development. If a nation’s value system is poor, then she remains backward ad infinitum. Nigeria cannot be an industrialized economy without adapting its culture to modern industrial realities.
Nigerians generally have not imbibed the culture of using scientific means to solve industrial, medical, governance and managerial problems etcetera. Many Nigerians have not accepted science, and technology as a way of life. Rather, most Nigerians have remained superstitious and animistic. We want miracle to happen in national development. But there is no short cut, the people must work diligently to achieve national development. As primary, secondary and tertiary institutions increase, education has not significantly changed how most Nigerians relate to the natural world. Public education can improve in Nigeria provided all other factors of the society mentioned above are of higher standard. Otherwise, Nigeria will not be able to develop highly skilled and technologically adroit citizens that will enable her transit from backwardness to industrialization. Time has come for state and federal governments to overhaul curricula of public schools, and provide adequate funds to enable these institutions prepare students who are pro-industry. Contributions from families, communities and the Organized Private Sector will go a long way to improving public education because state and federal governments cannot do it alone.

MA Johnson