.

It was for this same reason that I put up my signature a few months ago. The level of intellectual 'dumbness' is so astounding that at most times, you have to sound illiterate in order to communicate comfortably with the youths. There is so much illiteracy and intellectual stupidity in the land to last us a millennium! ...and it gets worse with each passing day.

it's great to have found such an intellectually stimulating topic on the front page. Having read through, I'd like to share my thoughts in a more summarized format.

1. I quite agree that standards are crashing not just in terms of education but virtually all sectors except, off course, in our sense of collective sense of moral values.

2. the root cause of all our problems in my opinion is our value system. in simple words, what virtues does our society celebrate? while it's easy to mention corruption as one of the problems, the truth is that it is not. corruption at every strata of society is the result of poor values that celebrate opulence without hardwork, flamboyant lifestyles as evident in the "do you know who i am" or "show off" mentality of even the poor or less privileged to steal Nigerians.

such poor values encourage us (you and me) to live above our means and also "impress" anyone who looks at us in the process. when people can't maintain the false standards through genuine and honest means, they will naturally resort to theft. this is what breeds corruption.

still on value system... corruption thrives because we don't boo theives, mediocrity in education thrives because geniune excellence is not celebrated. on the subject of tertiary education, as long as the mentality of until I have BSc or MSc or PhD,... I am nobody in society remains the mad rush for a worthless certificate will continue. until we evolve a value system that celebrates results and NOT paper qualification in all sectors; until we evolve a values system that genuinely promotes national unity, our ethnic, religious and other "differences" will continue to affect political appointments which produce clueless and visionless leaders... I can go but I wouldn't because of time...

SOLUTIONS

1. CHANGE THE SYSTEM THAT PRODUCES LEADERS.

This bothers down to a reform of the Nigerian political system. Those who have benefited or are still benefiting from the system will not change it. A genuine and selfless person will have to rise to the occasion, inspire a new breed of persons who will inspire a critical mass of like minded persons to DEMAND MERIT AS THE ONLY YARDSTICK FOR FILLING POLITICAL POSITIONS.

The first hurdle the dream political team must cross is to reform the judiciary, police, security agencies, other law enforcement units in society. With an effective system that identities and punishes the crooked without bias, corruption will reduce or die gradually.

the next hurdle will be to acknowledge, celebrate and empower excellence and RESULTS ... to be continued some other day. have to attend to an emergency...

othenok: As a kid, I remember my Dad dropping my siblings and I at Enugu Library during long vacation.
I remember reading Newspaper every evening with my Dad as a kid of 5. It was interesting. It was a family tradition.
You and I, what are we passing down as a tradition to our children? Nigeria is in a mess, yes, but I bet you the clean up should start from the homes. Our country can only get better when we make the effort teach our children to be unique and not to have crowd mentality.

Exactly my brother. When I tell people that I started reading the newspapers in primary 1, they just laugh it off but its true.

dridowu: I remember when i gain admission then, i saw lots of WAEC/NECO/JAMB SCORES that are superb but immediately after finishing 1st year, the school was able to seperate the real men from boiz, and today to God the glory.
Hmmmmm, standard of education are fallen in Nigeria cos of so many factors
(1) social activites , imagine a student that cannot define a " Noun " but has about 3pages of exercise books of 2go friends and can name 90% of them without looking the books, etc
(2) parent, some of our parent have a fault, by not forcing their children/ward to do what is right, i remeber a neigbhour that fails to buy books for his child after 2months holiday and later he was saying that he does not know that the school has resume.
(3) Govt policy: that fails to yield positive result
(4) School Mgt and Teachers
(5) student itself that fails to utilize the little resoures that are available.

Your grammar is not encouraging either.

* Please permit me to abbreviate where necessary *

Nigeria is facing so many problems i must say. It's true dat so many of r Graduates r half-baked. A situation where by a Student/Graduate can't construct a simple sentence or beta still write a formal or an informal letter calls 4 serious questioning. Otherwise, how did such a person pass his/her WAEC or GST 111(USE OF ENGLISH)?

Go 2 social networking sites lyk Facebook, Nairaland, 2go, BBM, etc, & c d mistakes so many people make while updating their statuses.

Everybody is 2 blame in dis mess. Parents, Teachers/Lecturers, Students, Employers as well as d Government all have a part 2 play towards achieving a brighter future 4 our dear country Nigeria.

Finally, i welcome any/every correction dat may arise 4rm my comments coz it will go a long way 2 improve me all round. Thank u.

Nigerian system is a systematic failure. Unless concerted efforts are put in place to correct our fabrics of lives , it's impossible to fix fallen standard of education alone. If you still have to worry about clean water, food, accommodation, transportation etc. especially in the mist of plenty, you will always be tempted to look for "short cut". Any Nigeria leader can wake up and tell us that they have vision 2010 (Abacha) Vision whatever, but what's been done to achieve just 10% of the countless visions, absolutely nothing, but on the other hand , CORRUPTION is taking strong hold of every aspect of Nigerian society. So, fallen standard of education will not be an aberration.
Sad to say, Nigeria is still a sinking ship, the rest of world are looking at nomothetic approaches of solving their problems, Nigeria have held on to idiographic ideologies for too long. It's no uncommon for young intellectuals who wants to bring new ideas are often frustrated with phrases like, " this is the way ,we have been doing it". I just think Nigerian entity is an anomaly. The 53 years experiment hasn't worked and it won't anytime soon.

@corruptst, You also break my heart with the name you have chosen, so you are also a product of what you are writing. Definitely there is no intelligence in your chosen name.

Hi people,
Heard gist (unfortunately, not enough information to independently verify) of an employer in Lagos that carried out a very simple exercise for interviewing applicants when they advertised an entry level position:
Applicant to please provide a handwritten essay on why they would like to take the job.
None of the invited applicants on interview day made it.

My point is, the system is warped to the point where we may not be able to believe credentials anymore. Can we really blame employers on the look out for foreign degrees?

But here's a wicked twist to it all:
How do you propose to motivate someone to read when it has been publicly proven, repeatedly, that you don't have to be all that smart to make the big bucks?

paulworld: PLEASE WHAT IS THE TITLE OF THIS SEASON FILM WILL LIKE TO BUY A COPY LATER IN THE EVENING

An example of the failed educational system. I pray ASUU calls off this strike quickly and you (hopefully) put your mind to use.

bamssy: wat has "1st 2 comment" got 2 do wt learnin more ova wu tld u dat der r no beta students out der wu r d product of dis present educational system @op as 4 d topic i guess d fault lies wt d parent wu dnt kia abt d type of sch their wards go 2 der r lot of gud sch out der i was so surprise wt d level of phonetics spoken by my niece wich was lackin as at our tym so m conclutn s der r beta & worse schs nw dan bak den

Lord have mercy.

Forgive me everyone but WTF!!!!

..

I can't remember the last time I took my time to read each and every contribution on a nairaland trend, on this particular occasion though, I certainly did.

I had a first hand experience of what the state of education in Nigeria looks like during my service year(especially in the camp), and honestly, I didn't find it interestly.

It's good to know many Nigerians share the same view, I've seen lots of suggestions here, I just hope we're contributing our little quota too.

'After all has been said and done, there is much more said, than done' My humble advice to all is be a 'doer' not just a 'talker'

GOD BLESS NIGERIA

If an award was to be given, this writer will win,(check the highlighted portion below) why?, agreed, we have all made good analysis of the problem and suggestions on the way forward, but the MAIN PROBLEM with our decaying education system is the COMPLETE INABILITY to diagnose the exact problem that is actually wrong with the education sector. It is amazing that parents, students, public analysts, policy makers, government, consultants don't have a REALISTIC CLUE on the way forward - period.
What then is the the Problem?
Answer: The EXACT Problem with our educational system is the widely accepted ILLUSION that education is all about training everybody to end up as an academic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Often times teachers are entirely blamed for poor performance of students on subjects at school. But the reality is that a sizeable proportion of the population in our society in particular have no actual need whatever for academic education beyond BASIC EDUCATION i.e JSS 3 (at the moment). Humans are innately endowed with either: NUMERATE or LITERARY or VOCATIONAL SKILLS (the numerate inclined are good in calculations, the literally endowed are good/creative writers and the vocationally gifted are good with working with hands; though some can combine some or all the areas perfectly or partially) The majority, after basic education should be FORMALLY EDUCATED/TRAINED on VOCATIONAL SKILLS/EDUCATION - where they rightly belong and where they can realise their potentials and destiny. Before then, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ACCREDITATION & CERTIFICATION should be put in place and vocations such as tailoring, mechanics, buildings, crafts, woodworks, furniture, etc should not regarded as options for school drop outs but as a standard. Certificates for this vocational skills should serve the purposes of evidence of graduation from training, empowerment for practice, an acceptable ticket for employment and furthering to advanced/higher vocational training and acceptable for admission to undertake related academic course in the university. University education are meant to groom candidates with flair for academic/scholarly and management grade professionals - and everybody in a generation cannot be educated scholars in a country!!!! In Africa, we don't know actually what a university is and what role it suppose to play in the society, even Professors don't know it, just cross check ASUU prescription for the universities system.
Our education system should flow accordingly: Basic Education -- Vocational Education/Technical Education/Senior Secondary -- Advanced or Professional Vocational Education/University
It takes a total reinvention and revamping of our education structure to accomplish anything meaningful. Accordingly, aside regular schools, professional bodies such as ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants on Nigeria), COREN - for Engineers , and even new ones should be established (such as Automobile Technicians Institute, Builders Institute, etc) to also register and train and certify vocational and professional skills with their recognised certificate graded in hierarchy to demonstrate the level of skills just as academic certificates. Any student that cannot cope with senior secondary level of education should be withdrawn and drafted to vocational education arm of the school - in a system where senior secondary and vocational education run alongside each other.

NEED FOR SEPARATE EXTERNAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATION CENTERS
Hosting External examinations such as WAEC, NECO, JAMB, etc has been completely rubbished because schools write examinations answers on the board for students to copy in 99% of the schools that serve as exams centers. It is true that most schools don't meet the requirements to even host these exams in the first instance. To stop this nonsense, every state should be provided with about 5 - 20 digital examination centers that are fully computerised and monitored with robust biometric and electronic spy surveillance to complement the physical invigilators to make it foul proof and tight system devoid of cheating. Exams such as WAEC or GCE can be taken anytime from January to December. A candidate desirous to take a particular exam will book in advance and obtained an allotted schedule for such an exams by the discretion of the examination center. Just as exams answers scrips are marked and reviewed, the video documenting the examination invigilation recording would be replayed and ascertained OK before results are released and invigilators would certainly live up to expectation since every act in the exams hall would be relayed both real-time and recorded basis. This will automatically make examination result an authentic reflection of the performance of candidates. Certainly, exams malpractice can be stamped out

sholay2011: @OP....This is a very nice topic! But don't be disappointed, many NLers won't be interested in a brain-tasking thread like this where unmeaningful contributions can quickly be pointed out unlike threads on celebrities' marriage, fashion style, secret lives, scandals and music videos where even the dumbest person can destructively criticise with cynic comments just to 'announce' him or herself on NL.

So, what is the way forward? These are my suggestions:

[b]1. Nigerians have a bad orientation as regards most things that pertain to education. They would rather allow a gifted child waste some years in a tertiary institution just because we are certificate-obsessed in this country. Tertiary education shouldn't be meant for everybody! It's not every child that has the intellectual capacity/ interest/passion to go into courses that require University education. After secondary school level, wards should be given the opportunity to diversify. Vocational training should be encouraged and not looked upon with disdain. Then, the academically inclined people who also have passion for research would be the ones gracing the four walls of our tertiary institutions; dexterous children can learn vocational skills and become experts; talented ones can go to music and film schools etc. The government should also organise various symposia and programmes to reorientate the populace so those that didn't attend a tertiary institution are not frowned upon. Then, let's see if those that apply for UME and so on won't reduce. The desperation to cut corners just to get an admission would be reduced since we are now aware that academics is not the only 'way'.[/b]

2. I will still emphasize on the reorientation again of Nigerians towards the issues of University and Polytechnics. The latter shouldn't be treated as an inferior learning centre to the former. Employers should please take note.

3. Scholarships should be used to encourage students interested in the academic field especially the indigent ones. And some specific disciplines should be encouraged for a positive result on the macroeconomic level. The government constantly preaches that youths should go into agriculture, yet, there are no 'incentives' in place to even encourage those that are studying agriculture-related courses in schools. Most agric students are made to feel inferior to students of 'professional courses' whereas they should be encouraged so they can develop the little they learn into solid agricultural practice. Educational shows should be equally encouraged. I am not anti-entertainment, but most of the shows/competitions that grace our screens are singing and talent shows. Educational shows like the Zain Africa Challenge should be encouraged.

4. Needless to say, lecturers and teachers in all educational levels (not just those that have a union called ASUU, ASUP etc.) should be 'treated well' in terms of payment but still, money shouldn't be the main driving force of an individual that wants to devote a portion ot his or her life to passing knowledge to young, brilliant minds and raising world leaders. It should be passion and the fulfillment enjoyed in doing what the person loves. Therefore, teachers and lecturers should be seriously drilled before they are employed to see if they are fit for the job. Some lack patience and we soon hear of flogging of erring students to coma etc. The teaching job is a serious job as much as that of a health personnel and should be treated as such.

I will be back with more points later...I am hungry. #Pounded yam and Okro tinz#

I do agree with most of OP's points. I disagree with his references to Nairalanders who do not write in standard English. This is a public forum where the primary objective is communicating in English. It is not an exam therefore we should overlook the grammatical mistakes, poor presentation, etc and just try to figure out what the writer is trying to communicate. Some of the very ones that write pidgin are quite capable of writing standard English but choose pidgin instead. Some are very fluent in other languages but struggle to communicate in English. Some never finished school and they also find it an ordeal to express themselves in writing. Let's not judge a book by its cover. But on the other side of the coin I do have an issue with those declaring themselves university graduates and proceed to mutilate the language. We need to look to the future. Nothing can be done about these already wasted generations. The system need to be revamped and hopefully the next generation would start closing the gap between our standard and those of the world leaders.

The fallen standard of education in Nigeria is a true reflection of the country itself.

Nigeria needs serious overhauling and calibration.

Champella: * Please permit me to abbreviate where necessary *

Nigeria is facing so many problems i must say. It's true dat so many of r Graduates r half-baked. A situation where by a Student/Graduate can't construct a simple sentence or beta still write a formal or an informal letter calls 4 serious questioning. Otherwise, how did such a person pass his/her WAEC or GST 111(USE OF ENGLISH)?

Go 2 social networking sites lyk Facebook, Nairaland, 2go, BBM, etc, & c d mistakes so many people make while updating their statuses.

Everybody is 2 blame in dis mess. Parents, Teachers/Lecturers, Students, Employers as well as d Government all have a part 2 play towards achieving a brighter future 4 our dear country Nigeria.

Finally, i welcome any/every correction dat may arise 4rm my comments coz it will go a long way 2 improve me all round. Thank u.

when was the last time you see a young man going to library or even buying newspaper....This is a classic case of educational decadence and decline.Can you just imagine the spellings and grammer of this writer ?I weep,this is disheartening,
Have you gone to these private schools and interview our teachers? when I was serving I used to have a corp member, she studied mechanical engineering but couldn't teach maths and physics,she was teaching home economics,can you imagine a mechanical engineer doing this? what of the girl I meet at NYSC camp,studied mass communications but can't distinguish libel from defamation. hmmm ,I pray not to send my kid in NIGERIAN universities. Lectures are busy striking,students are busy pinging,govt is busy looting. I JUST WEEP FOR EDUCATION

The only problem with education in Nigeria is that students are not allowed to think.

The lecturers expect you to vomit their notes word for word.
The purpose of education is to make students think and improve on what they are thought. Improve society. University is meant for reseach not to copy and paste.

How can one think when the only way to pass is to photocopy lecture notes back to the lecturer?
Any attempt to question a lecturer on new findings in his area (cos most of them use the same lecture notes of 10 years ago) will only lead to being seen as an enemy and you will most likely fail the course.

This inability to think is what employers complain about. 1st class, 2-1 student who cannot deliver in the field.
Engineers who cannot fix anything. Doctors who experiment with patients, try this drug or that.

While graduates complain there are NO JOBS, businesses complain there are NO APPLICANTS.

Since Nigeria has enough problems, I dont like to discuss problems alone but profer solutions also.

SOLUTION
1) Copy and paste to pass exams and get the best grade you can.
2) Read more than you are taught. God bless the internet... Use it.
3) Learn a skill because that is the only way to make a living. People pay for service. They pay better for good service.
There are many. Event management, Software developer, Public speaker, Hair dressing... The list is endless. Just pick one.
4) When you look for that dream job and it doesnt come in 2 years (1 year NYSC + 1 post NYSC). Fall back on your skill and be the best you can.

Bottomline, if you cant get a job, make one.

renaissance: d most effective & reliable way of curbing exam malpractice is 2 conduct exam(be it WAEC,GCE,NECO JAMB or PUME) on a CBT basis.

naija s more than what u think.

Number_One: The only problem with education in Nigeria is that students are not allowed to think.

The lecturers expect you to vomit their notes word for word.
The purpose of education is to make students think and improve on what they are thought. Improve society. University is meant for reseach not to copy and paste.

How can one think when the only way to pass is to photocopy lecture notes back to the lecturer?
Any attempt to question a lecturer on new findings in his area (cos most of them use the same lecture notes of 10 years ago) will only lead to being seen as an enemy and you will most likely fail the course.

This inability to think is what employers complain about. 1st class, 2-1 student who cannot deliver in the field.
Engineers who cannot fix anything. Doctors who experiment with patients, try this drug or that.

While graduates complain there are NO JOBS, businesses complain there are NO APPLICANTS.

Since Nigeria has enough problems, I dont like to discuss problems alone but profer solutions also.

SOLUTION
1) Copy and paste to pass exams and get the best grade you can.
2) Read more than you are taught. God bless the internet... Use it.
3) Learn a skill because that is the only way to make a living. People pay for service. They pay better for good service.
There are many. Event management, Software developer, Public speaker, Hair dressing... The list is endless. Just pick one.
4) When you look for that dream job and it doesnt come in 2 years (1 year NYSC + 1 post NYSC). Fall back on your skill and be the best you can.

Bottomline, if you cant get a job, make one.

absolutely right bro... Just that skills are not that easy to acquire and perfect moreover, seeking formal skill training in nigeria is expensive and not worth the spend (niit is a good example). Those that want to acquire skill should be braced for a very tough challenge.

lekkie073: e go beta o....

stop joking ples.

Underdogg:
But here's a wicked twist to it all:
How do you propose to motivate someone to read when it has been publicly proven, repeatedly, that you don't have to be all that smart to make the big bucks?

Ah, I've got to correct this very wrong impression. When people go to school and learn, what they get is NOT an education. My father used to say "Education is when you take all your experiences, formal and informal, and put them to good use". The wealthiest college dropout billionaires would have come out with a first class if we had a system that didn't rely on graded exams (because most really creative thinkers are bad at exams, which usually require traditional analytical skills). I've met some billionaire college dropouts and trust me, they are voracious devourers of Knowledge, unlike your average businessman (who only listens to news that concerns him). That's why a million guys were importing bikes and cars, and Innoson decided to have them assembled here (same idea as Tata), Dangote realised supporting the right government official would help in making them pass policies that would open the market to his products (same idea as lobbying, check any western government), Banky W who realised that endorsements and good publicity would earn him more than singing and music videos (I don't know a single song of his, but he's now into presenting and is making more money that his peers who depend solely on concert performance fees). These people are using the informal and formal knowledge they've found to better themselves. Don't call them uneducated and better believe this, only the smart make money.

I blame Nigerians for the problems of Nigeria. Read this thread, it's everyone else's fault our system is bad, not ours. We value material success in this country: a wealthy pastor or a rich person means blessings, irrespective of what his destined path was.
Now, we all know the system is bad. The whole world knows our system is bad. We're all on the internet moaning about it. Please tell me, what have you used that internet to learn today? I've seen people ask me questions my 11-yr old nephew abroad would google and tell me the answer.
I've seen in this country how we disdain learning "you too know book", when the reality is, all the successful people I've met, even the art curator who never attended uni, can hold their own conversationally against a professor.
If I change the channel to BBC or CNN or even Channels, half of us will flee, then wonder why we don't know enough business skills to succeed and have to pay for info that is free.
If my boss says "don't worry, I'll take over that job from you if it's too difficult", most nigerians will heave a sigh of relief, instead of them to say "no, let me take on this challenge, even in failure, I'll learn". Yet they're perplexed that they don't have skills to handle projects, like their foreign counterparts.
There's no point crying over spilt milk, stop pointing fingers and start expanding your minds.
So, before we all join this whinefest and blow grammar incorrectly in a bid to show off, in this quest for education, for knowledge, pray tell me, what have you learned today that you didn't know before?

^^^
What you were trying to pass across is what we call EDUCATION.
There is a difference between academics and education, though we use them interchangeably. Many of those people applying knowledge into great things or outside the box were educated (which means to build up) and not necessarily academic. (Reference to your penultimate post).
To the issue you raised about challenge, we have been trained in this part of the world not to believe in "failing or falling". "For you to be the best, you surely must have been raking in As" and we all know that is the beginning of mediocrity. If one had had a challenge path in the course of one's upbringing, such a one would be guided by a high value system borne out of excellence and passion for reproducing generations desperate for excellence despite tumultous rising. I believe that was what developed the likes of Bill Gates, late Steve Jobs, late Lincoln and hosts of others. Our value system is dangerous to human existence, truly speaking.

dridowu: I remember when i gain admission then, i saw lot of WAEC/NECO/JAMB SCORES that are superb but immediately after finishing 1st year, the school was able to seperate the real men from boiz, and today to God the glory.
Hmmmmm, standard of education are fallen in Nigeria cos of so many factors
(1) social activites , imagine a student that cannot define a " Noun " but has about 3pages of exercise books of 2go friends and can name 90% of them without looking the books, etc
(2) parent, some of our parent have a fault, by not forcing their children/ward to do what is right, i remeber a neigbhour that fails to buy books for his child after 2months holiday and later he was saying that he does not know that the school has resume.
(3) Govt policy: that fails to yield positive result
(4) School Mgt and Teachers
(5) student itself that fails to utilize the little resoures that are available.

Wow very good one, keep it up .

^^ you're right, there's a difference between Education and Academics. But we value academics (oh my pikin came out with a first class, 2-1 in Engineering, English, Law, gbo gbo e, yet you meet the person and realised they crammed). Our academic system is poor, but that's no excuse. I showed up to my final year project with a difficult supervisor, when I was done, he made me put that project on the internet as he felt it had valuable info. Stop waiting for your lecturers and start sourcing for knowledge. Read above your syllabus. Oya, let's make it easy: start by a full week of watching a news channel, and reading newspapers to develop critical thinking skills. Be able to decipher the difference between news that is biased and your version of reality. Then pick up that obsolete textbook your lecturer made you buy, go online and look for modern-day applications e.g: you wanna learn basic Math well, jack a K.A. Stroud, do online-GRE and GMAT tests. After that, I defy you to fail a Math course. THAT's how you compete with that boy who just got back from UCLA or Howard Uni. Go and watch BBC and CNN, read up on the CBN policies, then go for a bank interview, you'll sound smarter than the guy interviewing you (my friend did it and got the job, 6 months later, got to be PA to the CEO of the bank, now runs one of the smaller companies under the parent group. No MBA, no connections. Same with my bro, a lawyer).
If you have kids, pick an evening, call it "No tv day". All everyone will do in the house is read a book. My sister does this with her kids and she and I would even read our own books with them. Her boy got one of the best common entrance scores in the UK this year, got into a nice private school.
That's how you succeed academically. By being more prepared than anyone else.

^^^
Sorry to disappoint you my sister, that is too difficult for my compatriots in Nigeria o. To pass 1k1 questions on entertainment and make 1st class out of it is easier than sitting with book to study.
The present day generation are much more luckier than mine, seriously speaking. With Kindle devices, tablets and Ipads where I cab pack 1000s of books on different topics and carry around to as the "best connection money can buy to gain knowledge", my people will prefer to ping, to chat or do so many intangibles. We need to be involved in all those stuffs too, but they should take lesser priority.
Who is to blame? Everyone involved in the education project; with the government taking the major portion, and the so called erudites in our universities taking the second position.
ASUU is on strike now, and NO single professor could even suggest a model or plan to the government and ask the government to start that model with one federal instituition in the 6 geopolitical zones of nation and see if it would work or not, yet they adjudge themselves as professor of education, business administration, public administration and every other administration one could imagine and make one wonder if these people really worth their onions at all in the first place. Kudos to the ones that are realy putting their best in raising the standard. God will continue to bless them.

Honestly, i ve been asking myself this question; Who's to be blamed in the fallen standard of education in Nigeria? The only answer i was able to give myself is this; everybody is be blamed, say the parents, students, the government, the society, you name it. There 're pupils that are not sound academically in primary schools but their parents will always come to the owner of the school to give these pupils double promotions and the proprietor knowing these kids re not good will still go ahead to do it because he doesn't want loose these pupils. Why not allow the child to grow from one class to another and in the course of doing this will improve academically. Tell me, how do expect this child to cope in the secondary school and university because the higher you go, the tougher it becomes. We also ve parents who dont know the value of education. They give birth to lots of children but can't take care of one in any good school. What they do is to send them to school where the owner collects 20 naira per child everyday. The day the parents do not have 20 naira, the children stay at home and you expect these kids to compete favourably with other kids from big schools. No way! The government is another problem. We ve govt that does not care about what happens in our educational sector. We dont ve any university that can stand out among other universities in other countries and the govt is doing nothing about it. A govt that's serious with our educational sector will not allow ASSU Strike to linger on for more than 2 months. Look at our school curriculum, there 're lots of courses that need to be introduced and some phased out. Whats typewriting as a course doing in business education curriculum? The government and other stakeholders need to be proactive with our education. The pupils/students re not helping matters at all. We have students instead of studying ve engaged their precious time in gambling, internet scam, robbery and what have because they re looking for easy ways to success but there re no easy ways to success. The society is corrupt and there's high level of moral decadence and this will invariably affect an average Nigerin student. So, the fallen standard of education could be attributed to many factors. Every living soul in this country has contributed to this in one way or the other. Its a question of looking inwards to see where you 've shared part of the blame.

A-ZeD:

They abbreviate because they are lazy. Nairaland has a spell checker.

Besides, are there no standardised and recognised abbreviations?

The standard of education has never fallen.
We have not applied education then and we r not applying it now simple.

OP. You are on point here. Not only education in nigeria but failing standard in everything in this country. Nigeria is collapsing by the days. No thanks to bad leadership, corruption and indescipline.