With the emergence of Bola Tinubu as the President of Nigeria, experts who spoke to Uchechukwu Nnaike and Funmi Ogundare have called for massive investment in education; review of policies and ensure their implementation, as well as to create more access to education at all levels, to lead the country in the path of growth and development
It is the dawn of a new administration with the inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima on May 29. It was a catalogue of crises and collapse in the education system under erstwhile President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. Nigerians expect a better deal for the education sector under the current government. The sector seemed to be at the precipice as it still grapples with inadequate funding leading to incessant strikes by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), deplorable infrastructure, low remuneration of teachers, and the non-implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage in some states. Other challenges include a lack of political commitment, coordination among governments, unclear delineation of intergovernmental roles, inadequate statistical data, political instability, and corruption.
Little wonder the former Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who was often criticised for his alleged lack of initiative to return millions of Nigerian out-of-school children to the classrooms, recently confessed at a valedictory session with officials and heads of parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja, that he had zero knowledge of the sector when he was appointed in 2015.
However, he quickly said he was forced to apply wisdom by appointing some professors of education and other experts in the sector. He stated that with the help of the ministry officials, he was able to kick off and make some progress.
“I didn’t know anything about the education sector when I was appointed minister except superficially. But when Buhari decided to make me minister of education, I called some people to assist me to work on a policy document on education because I was a novice in the sector,” said Adamu. “I shared my idea with them and they assisted me greatly, and I remain grateful to them for these years.”
During one of his campaigns, Tinubu promised to bring reforms to the sector from the basic to the tertiary level and that “my administration, if elected, would review the education curriculum at all levels to suit the emerging global best practices and current socio-economic realities.”
He added that the curricula would be reviewed to ensure that Nigerian graduates become conversant with global trends in different fields and sectors where they can contribute productively to the country’s economy.
“This will ensure our graduates at tertiary level are not only trained for white-collar jobs, but they will be enterprising and innovative,” he said.
Among his plans for other sectors, Tinubu, however, did not mention anything about the education reforms in his inaugural address but remarked that his administration “must create meaningful opportunities for our youths. We shall honour our campaign commitment of one million new jobs in the digital economy.
“Our government also shall work with the National Assembly to fashion an omnibus and prosperity bill,” Tinubu pledged. “This bill will give our administration the policy space to embark on labour-intensive infrastructural improvement, encourage light industry and provide social services for the poor, elderly and vulnerable.”
Some education stakeholders expressed confidence that the new administration would improve on the previous administration’s efforts by learning from experience, stressing the need to review educational policies and their implementation, adding that the present dispensation must increase its education budget to create a better impact.
In his submission, the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of Edwin Clark University, Kiagbodo, Delta State, Prof. Timothy Olagbemiro, stated that education in Nigeria had withstood the test of time, remaining formidable.
“The current allocation is still far short of the United Nations recommended budget for education in Nigeria,” stated Olagbemiro. “What l consider essential now is the amount of funds budgeted for education by the past government. It is still not enough considering the role education occupied in nation building.”
He stated that the country’s educational policies must experience continuous review and true implementation.
“Really, on paper, we have one of the best educational systems in the world. Our problem has always been implementing our policies. Needless to say, how many of our teachers at the preschool, primary school, and secondary school are well-trained and appropriately certified to teach?” added Olagbemiro. “Our major problems for many years have been the implementation of guidelines and policies set by the government. At present, Nigeria has a good number of institutions where prospective staff could be appropriately trained and certified at each level of our educational endeavours, but how many of them go through these training programmes before they are employed?”
“Tertiary education is developing day after day. But the problems of staffing continue to haunt us. But these are the usual teething problems of development. Nigeria will get there with adequate planning and budgeting.”
The former VC said Nigerians from birth must be issued the National Identification Numbers (NIN), which must be used for preschool entry, primary secondary and all educational training and tertiary institutions.
As it is now, the NIN will be personal to each person for life, noted Olagbemiro, like the US social security number used for education at all levels, registration, driving licence, hospital registration, and jobs acquisition, and to be affixed on passports, campus course registrations, marriage certificates, and even death certification.
“The use of such personal registration numbers is essential to enable students or even workers to secure loans from banks or institutions to enable them to pay for their studies, seek loans for business and the like,” stated Olagbemiro. “The period of payments of all borrowed monies as loans and its repayment upon graduation would be determined by the agencies or organisation granting such loans. It would be useful to study the American universities’ work-study and loan systems.”
Olagbemiro said that leaders must listen, learn and weigh options for what is best for Nigerians and for the country.
Also, the Deputy Vice-chancellor (Academic, Research, Innovations and Partnerships) of Osun State University, Osogbo, Prof. Anthony Kola-Olusanya, called for the internalisation of higher education and injection of sufficient funds into it, saying that the new administration should implement various measures to promote Nigeria as a global study destination.
“Nigeria has lost its place as an attractive location for higher education globally, ” he said, adding that such commitment can be achieved by facilitating genuine and productive formal partnerships with eminent universities abroad.
Kola-Olusanya also stressed the need for digitalisation of higher education in Nigeria which will help increase enrolment into tertiary institutions and provide access to students who could not gain admission due to the limited carrying capacities.
A French and Francophone Studies professor at the Department of European Languages and Integration Studies, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Victor Ariole, stressed the need to oblige local government areas (LGAs) to get children into schools to reduce the number of out-of-school children.
“If possible, build well-equipped 10-model primary schools in each of the 774 LGAs. Let each state be evaluated on how its secondary schools are faring seen through access to tertiary institutions of their secondary school boys and girls,” Ariole said.
He added that the university level should be highly competitive so that no fewer than one million are admitted out of three to four million that seek admission. He recommended that more vocational centres should be built by state governments to occupy the youths who are not able to get admission.
