Recently, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka took time to describe the state of the education sector in the country as horrifying. He was quite emphatic that the situation is such that Nigeria is in trouble!
To say that the country is in trouble in this respect is an understatement. There is chaos in the land and solution seems to be nowhere to be found. It has been reported that in some local government areas in Nigeria, there are no formal schools that can meet the United Nations’ standards. Added to this is the problem of insurgency as represented by the Boko Haram elements.
Things in the education sector have become so bad to the extent that even the so called educationally ‘advantage’ states mainly in the south of Nigeria are performing extremely poorly.
What are the problems? To answer this question without being dishonest, corruption and eroded value-system in the land can be quickly identified.
Upon all, successive governments at all levels have continued to pay lip service to the uplift of the education sector. Therefore, primary, secondary and universities have been steadily churning out half baked or badly baked products.
Funds are not provided to provide infrastructures and where they are, corruption then takes over. Teachers too are not well paid, leaving the profession at the mercy of charlatans who are only there because there is no better engagement for them.
The implication of having a rotten education sector is that all the other professions will also become automatically affected because the engineer, the lawyer, the doctor, the accountant and other professionals are products of the school system.
For now, there is no short cut. The needful must be done. All stakeholders including parents, teachers, regulatory authorities and others must wake up to their responsibilities. The journey of 20 years must start immediately. The present and the future generation must work together to radically transform the sector.
It is now of essence that governments at all levels must declare an emergency to salvage the situation in the education sector. And they must be serious with it.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
