By Emwanta jerry
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word ‘education’ is a process of teaching, training and learning especially in schools or colleges, to improve knowledge and develop skills”.
In any debate where Nigeria’s education is mentioned, the old good days of history continue to borrow deep in my consciousness. The reason is not simple. The Nigeria’s education would only be best appreciated when viewed from the lens of history.
Therefore, a cursory look at what Nigeria’s education was like before the arrival of the Europeans would help to give a better picture of the aforementioned.
Prior to when Nigeria was invaded by Europeans, she had constructed social institutions that were instrumental in facilitating learning. Although, this was not organized in a formal way like the contemporary school structures. In fact, Nigerians were avid learners of cultural and social responsibility. In those days, kids were taught by the adults about works, survival skills, culture, and even entrepreneurial skills that prevailed then. It was education in an informal atmosphere, under the lime tree. They may not have been able to read European letters, but they were knowledgeable in their cultures and their use of language(s).
Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it– William Haley.
Similarly, after the successful integration of Nigeria into the formal system of education by Europeans, it should be noteworthy that once upon a time Nigeria’s education lived up to its status as the best in Africa. Then, the educational sector wasn’t oblivious of its inevitability in raising the potential of students. It was an instrument of sustainable development. The degree to which Nigeria’s education was organized in all aspects attracted and drew foreign students virtually in all the countries of the world. The likes of Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Gani Fawehinmi..etc, were the products of this era.
However, the Kenyans do say that a rope has two sides. He who comes to a conclusion when the other side is unheard may have been just in his conclusion, but unjust in his conduct. At the same time I would not want to seat on the fence either. Scientific analysis requires objectivity; that is, weighing both sides of an issue without being biased.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s education has not been able to evolve beyond the status quo premised by Europeans. One of the corollary effects of these accounts unbiasedly for the reason most Nigerian graduates are handicapped in this 21th century. Our educational system is deeply stuck in the stagnant waters of mechanistic theorization. We have engineers who do not move close to engines, Prof. of Political science who cannot solve the 21th century’s political problems in Nigeria. All these are caused by inherited curriculum of centuries.
The rapidly moving information-based world badly needs people who know how to find facts rather than memorize them, and who know how to cope with change in creative ways. If there can be an overhaul of Nigeria’s educational curriculum, with some fictional features replace, and structure in a way that it addresses peculiar societal problems, then this seemingly problem of Nigerian graduates being robotic beings would be addressed and erased, even if not completely.
Now I ask: does it take only a doctor to save a life? One significant feature the 21st century’s education has imbued into its curriculum is the recognition of the indispensability of synergy of disciplines in resolving societal problems. In other words, all disciplines are held in high esteem with insignificant preferences because of their peculiarities. In this sense, students are allowed, without elements of force, to study what they deem fit has alignment with their passions. They are not made to believe that without having to study specific professional courses, they cannot be relevant in the society.
However, Nigeria’s education has been unable to align itself with this line of thinking. Although many would say this is largely concerned with the way the Nigerian society is structured; but educational institutions have greater impacts on the society. In Nigeria’s education, students of political science or sociology are made to believe that their chance of being relevant both in the school environment and society is one out of ten. This has created room for inferiority complex, which in most cases resort to suicide.
Furthermore, the above is of course one of the causes of suicide in Nigerian universities. The insensitivity of these universities to the emotional and psychological beings of their students is another challenge. Students are subject to unnecessary stress. This is the case of Uzaka Ebiweni, a 300-level student of Medicine and Surgery of the Niger Delta University(NDU), who in May 2019 committed suicide for FAILING his examination.
Also, on same note, on May 15, the media reports had that 22-year-old Chukwuemeka Akachi, a final year student of the department of English and Literary Studies at the University Of Nigeria, NSUKKA, committed suicide. There are numerous examples as virtually all Nigerian universities are victims. Suicide has multidimensional causes, but in the case of universities, I believe it can be reduced to the barest minimum if operational mechanisms, which can help students uncover whom they are, discover themselves within themselves, in other words, that would integrate individual passions in the academy system, are institutionalized. Currently, there is dearth of such structures that would match who some students want to become. Note, not everyone who loves to save life would be a good doctor.
Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who is one of the living witnesses of the glory days of Nigeria’s education, in 2011, out of his frustration against the current system, asked the then Federal government to declare state of emergency in the sector. In fact, he also went as far as suggesting the shutdown of all tertiary institutions for two years, reinforce what Ivan Illich called deschooling society.
This tells us how Nigeria’s education is no longer a viable institution. Certainly, there are glaring proofs that would justify the reason for Prof. Soyinka’s frustration against Nigeria’s education, even beyond the ones given above.
However, it is obvious the sector has met with its nadir, but rather than cross our fingers, it would be appropriate for concerned stakeholders to take proactive steps to sanitise the sector.
