There are numerous problems plaguing our education sector today, from elementary to higher education, the standard is falling, and our morals are eroding in a geometric proportion. It is necessary for us to examine the cause(s) of our problems if we are to find a way out of them. Having taken interest in this sector for a while, I came to a personal conclusion as to who and what is responsible for this decay. Although we are all guilty, but the blame shouldn't be shared equally. In my own opinion, the following are responsible for this decay
1) THE GOVERNMENT- it is suppose to maintain the standard, right from the start, but the government has proven to be the biggest failure of all. Government after government have continuously turned their backs on our education sector, it has allowed the standards to fall, and when it should have acted, it has turned a blind eye. Public schools are the worse you can think of in any state you visit. Students sitting on Windows, and cement blocks, or writing on wooden slates, teachers writing on bare wall in the absence of black boards are all comon features of our public schools. Aside infrastructure, the government has also failed to regulate and closely monitor education in Nigeria. But year after year, a reasonable sum of money is budgeted for education. What exactly is the money used for? only the government can answer.
2)EXAMINATION COUNCILS/ MALPRACTICE. Although many people believe that examination malpractice is merely a product of the decay, I strongly believe it is a cause of the decay. The ease with which malpractice is carried out during external examinations, and the huge success rate associated with it has made preparing for such exams an unnecessary task. Why read when you can cheat and pass with ease? After all no one is interested in what you know, they are only interested in your result. Gone were the days when malpractice was done in secret. These days it is an open afair, everyone is involved. Some exam centers are dubbed "miracle centers". If you sit for exams in such centers, you are surely going to make 9credits no matter how empty and cold your brain is. What many schools do is to simply collect "co operation fee" from the students, with which they bribe the supervisor, who then turns a blind eye to whatever hapens in the exam hall. This phenomenom has created an atmosphere of unseriousness among school children. Jamb is not left out. As far as 1week to the exam date, people are already buying answers to the questions, some even go as far as posting adverts online. How did they get acess to it? Jamb has a case to answer. Times have changed, hence the examination bodies must change their tactics to suit the current reality
3)PRIVATE SCHOOLS. This might come as a surprise to many, but private schools are actually killing education in Nigeria. These schools are usually run as a private business, and the entrepreneur/propietor will do everything necessary to retain his customers(students) and make profit, even if it means operating without standards. When a child fails a promotion exam, he is usually expected to repeat the class. But in many private schools, repeating is not an option, else the parents will simply withdraw the child from the school, which would be a loss to the school. Hence they keep pushing and managing dull students, with no definite effort to increase their academic performance. But you shouldn't blame them much because a large percentage of these private schools are staffed with unqualified teachers, who cannot really impact knowledge. Hence private schools have a long history of producing substandard students, who rely on malpractice to Excel.
4) PARENTS/TEACHERS. Well I don't really need to dwell much on this, it is all too obvious that teachers no longer take their jobs personal. They have neglected their roles as motivators,mentors and parents to their students. The excuse for this is that they are underpaid, and poorly equipped. But sadly, teachers are not the only ones facing these challenges, the health sector is as bad as education, but doctors and nurses have not stopped doing their jobs, so why should teachers give up?
Some parents on the other hand, are bent on making sure their children pass with good grades, and are willing to do anything necessary to achieve their aim, even if it means resorting to illegal means. Parents also tacitly suport unserious children sometimes. It is usually the parents that move a child from school to school when he/she is failing, and they also provide the funding for malpractice
5) STUDENTS. I dare to say that students carry only a tiny fraction of the blame. It is true that they spend more time on social media and television than they spend reading, and this has contributed to the brain drain. But why blame them when they have been given the impression that they can Excel without hard work?. If a dull student is made to repeat several times, and tightly monitored both in school and at home, his academic fortunes may progressively improve to the point of becoming a star. But that simply doesn't hapen.
Conclusively, we could simply say that Nigerian students are products of a failed system, which is hardly their fault. Our education system needs a total overhauling, apart from funding, policies and standards need to be put in place and strongly enforced. I ll like to discuss such policies in a seperate article.
N.B the above is merely the opinion of the writer, please feel free to politely disagree.
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This phenomenom has created an atmosphere of unseriousness among school children. Jamb is not left out. As far as 1week to the exam date, people are already buying answers to the questions, some even go as far as posting adverts online. How did they get acess to it? Jamb has a case to answer. Times have changed, hence the examination bodies must change their tactics to suit the current reality. 7498X dumps