As a structural theory, Functionalism sees social structure or the organisation of society as more important than the individual.
Functionalism is a top down theory. Individuals are born into society and become the product of all the social influences around them as they are socialised by various institutions such as the family, education, media and religion. Social consensus, order and integration are key beliefs of functionalism as this allows society to continue and progress because there are shared norms and values that mean all individuals have a common goal and have a vested interest in conforming and thus conflict is minimal.
This common goal must have been the driving force behind the movement for independence by our founding fathers. Fast forward fifty eight years, how well have we faired in keeping these goals alive?
Integration refers primarily to the ‘adjustment of conflict’. It is concerned with the coordination and mutual adjustment of the parts of the social system. Legal norms define and standardize relations between individuals and between institutions, and so reduce the potential for conflict. When conflict does arise, it is settled by the judicial system and does not therefore lead to the disintegration of the social system, in this regard, we have failed woefully as a nation. Impunity, disregard of law structures, contempt of court and the 'above the law syndrome' has crept into all and sundry.
Pattern maintenance refers to the ‘maintenance of the basic pattern of values, institutionalised in the society’. Institutions that perform this function include the family, the educational system and religion. In Parsons view ‘the values of society are rooted in religion’. Today, people have such diverse and specialist roles that moral codes have weakened and anomie has occurred (a lack of norms and values and self-control). Social order is no-longer based on having a common set of values as enshrined in the law but rather highlighted by deviance.
Which brings us as a nation on the threshold of "functional illiteracy". How did we get so bad? Where did we miss it? Why did we allow our social structures to decay so rapidly right under our noses and yet we took no cognisance of it? It's going to be practically impossible and highly improbably for us to answer such questions seeing that virtually all functional structures especially education has lost value so rapidly and at a rate faster than the Great Recession of 2008.
What we now have is a profligration of "Educational illiteracy" which due to our negligence has spilled over to every other functional structure we can think of. Let me state clearly here that "Educational illiteracy" in this context is not lack of education but rather the "ineffective form of education" been given to our future generations. The fact that an individual has gone through the 16years mandatory educational structure in Nigeria doesn't qualify such person as been educated. What qualifies you as been educationally literate, is your ability to put to practice what you have learned during those years of schooling.
We can all agree that education does not start with basic schooling but within the Family. If the early formative years of an individual is not properly tailored in basic cultural and ethical values, this puts pressure on the social structure of the localised community, this is not 'rocket science', you cannot plant maize and expect to reap yam. It is impossible.
This brings to the fore-front, the mode of upbringing of this twenty-first century. A loop-sided family leads to a loop-sided upbringing!!. With the frantic pace and the mad rush to amass wealth and riches, coupled with technological advancements and the influx of "borrowed cultures",we have seen a steady decline in parental care and attention. Gone are the days when parents share in the day to day activities of their wards, this has been replaced by social media and telecommunications gadgets, gone are the days of "open days" in our pre-tertiary educational institutions, gone are the days of unexpected check-ups on wards in universities, it's been replaces by "at most, 3 minutes of telephone call". The importance of family cannot be over emphasised but family alone is not d sole factor responsible for educational illiteracy.
Religion,arguably the most contentious and highly debated topic of present Nigeria. It's no news that our religious organisation which should primarily be saddled with the responsibility of building and imbibing cultural and ethical morals have suddenly become a 'glorified comic centre'. Religious organisations now take part in battle of supremacy even amidst practitioners of same faith. How then can we entrust such organisations with such great responsibility? The mere fact that religious organisations practise more of 'money-making' than the actual religious beliefs itself is a shocking development. Religious leaders live a life of opulence and preach wealth, sow seeds of discord between faiths and neglect their primary functions. An individual neglected by family and negatively oriented by religion would only constitute functional illiteracy to society no matter the level of educational literacy he or she attains.
Now we have two important bodies of the society who ought to help build the stratas of civility but have neglected their functions thereby creating a vacuum in the structure of society. We produce educationally literate graduates but functionally illiterate graduates and expect our society to develop. We vote functional illiterates to hold political office and we expect rapid growth of our country, can you give what you don't have? We appoint functional illiterates to head our ministries and government agencies and expect progress from such appointees.
Not until we are able to as a nation correct the wrongs and mistakes we've made over the years and indulge our religious bodies and family structures to understand their respective roles in society building, we will only continue to revolve around and be at the mercy of both Functional and Educational illiteracy!