REVAMPING PRIMARY EDUCATION
Government must do more than its patchy attention to education
The deplorable state of education in Nigeria can be glimpsed from the failure of many of the teachers whenever they are made to undergo basic elementary examinations. Yet, if those who are expected to impart knowledge are themselves illiterate, how do we create the necessary balance of skills and knowledge that would drive national development? This trend is common in many of the states across the country, especially with teachers in primary and secondary schools.
While the challenge goes beyond the quality of teachers, what is not in doubt is that there is need to revamp the education sector in Nigeria. The policy thrusts for such action can be found in the outcomes of several summits and their reports lying around in many offices and agencies in both Abuja and at the various state capitals. The learning environment, academic outcomes and the capacity of monitoring institutions are critical to revamping the education sector. But it is also a problem that not many of our people want to take teaching as a profession while the majority of those currently engaged are people who cannot find employment in other (more lucrative) sectors.
Receiving a children advocacy group, Save the Children, a former Zamfara Education Board Chairman, Hon. Adamu Jangebe once told his visitors that the state was in chronic shortage of primary school teachers. He lamented that as a result, not fewer than 300 public primary schools in the state were manned by a single teacher each. Many more schools in remote rural communities, he added, had no teacher at all leaving the children to their own devices with all the dire consequences for the future of our country. Unfortunately, the situation in the state has since worsened due to banditry.
More depressing is that the crisis of primary education is national. Across the country today, several studies and reports speak volumes about the abject neglect of infrastructure in schools. And to worsen matters, it does not appear as if the relevant authorities as well as critical stakeholders are paying attention. In many rural communities, classrooms are an essential commodity with the result that children study under trees. In the urban centres that have the luxury of being provided with classrooms, many of them are dilapidated with leaking roofs, cracked walls and without windows. In many cases, children seat on the floor as there are no reading tables and chairs for them.
Given such an unfriendly and harsh school environment it is only natural that children would resist going to school even as other social and economic factors collude to restrain primary school enrolment nationwide, but particularly in northern Nigeria. In some situations, children who, despite the unattractive conditions of their schools, still wanted to learn are unable to do so because the government is unable to provide them with teachers. Meanwhile, there is a consensus that the deplorable state of education in the country is traceable to the fact that politicians do not care about fixing the sector because they can afford to ship their children overseas.
Yet the provision of quality and affordable education is one of the sacred duties of government since they provide the needed human capital necessary for development. Without basic education, the future of children is already mortgaged with the attendant danger of making them susceptible to anti-social vices. Indeed, ample evidence exists that social miscreants and religious bigots, including the insurgents that have marooned the North-east of the country and bandits that have taken base in the Northwest, are largely recruited from the army of uneducated people who grew up without any hope for their future. We call on authorities at federal and in the states to work towards addressing this problem.
