How is education progressing in Nigeria?
Nigeria's education system has developed greatly
in the last 100 years. In 1914 Nigeria adopted the
British education system and this provided an
excellent foundation for future development.
The 1969 Curriculum Conference of Nigeria gave
rise to changes that were engineered to provide
Nigerian children with more specific skills to help
them succeed. This led to a series of policy
changes in 1977, 1981, 1998 and 2004 that
examined, evaluated and updated the curriculum
to produce a better system for Nigeria.
However, many children have still been failed in
Nigeria due to poor implementation of educational
policies in both private and public sector
secondary schools.
Nigeria is a young country and a large percentage
of the population is of an educational age.
According to the 2013 Mundi report, Nigeria’s
population is 175 million and around 63.2 percent
are under the age of 25. Children under the age of
15 make up 43.8% of the population.
Of the 77 million children in the country, 21
million are enrolled in primary schools, nine
million in secondary schools and 1.7 million are
registered for tertiary education. There are 128
universities in Nigeria of which 77 are
government funded and 51 are private.
The literacy rate for Nigerians over the age of 15 is
61.3%, so there is still room for a lot of
improvement in school education on a national
level.
Recent population growth is making it more
difficult for the government to provide a
consistent level of education for all of Nigeria’s
children but the system is progressing. There is
criticism that Nigeria does not have enough
university places; of the 1.7 million that are
registered for tertiary education, only 500,000 are
able to find a place.
College and university places are in short supply,
and many posts are unstaffed because of a
teacher shortage. Nigeria is struggling to recruit
enough teachers to educate its growing
population. Class sizes are increasing and the
quality of education in many schools and colleges
is actually reducing.
Education is so important for Nigeria's future
because the country is developing rapidly and
moving from being a primarily agricultural
economy to one with a growing service sector.
This sector needs well-educated people with an
excellent command of English and strong
academic results in mathematics by the time they
leave school. Further education is becoming
more important because many parts of the
service sector require new business leaders who
can help manage and grow the service sector.
Leadership education
The government has made some excellent
progress towards developing a generation of
more literate and better educated people.
However, it is the brilliant work of community
organizations such as the African Leadership
Academy (ALA) that is going a long way to
producing Africa’s future business and political
leaders.
On the ALA Global Advisory Council Tunde
Folawiyo is using his business expertise to help
forge a new generation of business leaders
through an innovative education academy that
draws expertise in from all over the world.
It is clear that Nigeria is moving in the right
direction but requires more investment into its
education system. Private academies are
providing an invaluable service to the wider
community but the government still needs to
tackle state education if Nigeria is to improve its
literacy rates and become a leading African
nation.