There was a veiled agreement
among participants at a recent
gathering in Obiaruku, Delta
state, South South, Nigeria, that
as a nation; if achieving a people-pur-
posed leadership forms part of our aim as
a nation, if accelerating economic devel-
opment is our goal, if social and cultural
development is our dreams, if promoting
peace, support industries and improve
energy sector forms our objective, and if
we must escape building a country that
future historians will not characterize as
a geographical entity reputed for loss of
jobs or qualifies as a state where citizens
daily slide into poverty and unexpected
illness,then,we must be ready to join the
global education advancement train.
Apart from creating, supporting and
promoting actions and activities for its
propagation, the gathering agreed that
catalyzing the process, will among other
things necessitate; the review of the edu-
cation curriculum currently in use in the
country as the outputs or products of the
curriculum no longer find a safe landing
in almost any sector in Nigeria today;
calls for the allocation of considerable at-
tention to education sector because going
by the Global partnership for Education,
“education is one of the most impor-
tant investments a country can make in
its people and its future. The SDG goal
number 4, is ‘to ensure inclusive and eq-
uitable quality education and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all was
explicit on this issue. The event was or-
ganized by a civil Society organization to
mark the International Day of Education
2020 celebration tagged “Learning for
people, planet, prosperity and peace,
Indeed, Nigerians cannot agree more
with the above argument as education
is globally recognized as the bedrock of
development; with sound educational in-
stitutions, a country in absolute terms is
as good as made -as the institutions will
turn out all rounded manpower to con-
tinue with the development of the society
driven by well thought out ideas, policies,
programmes, and project. Well impact-
ed education shapes the society and en-
courages the masses to look beyond the
acquisition of certificates in the universi-
ty and focus on how to create jobs instead
of depending on the government for em-
ployment that may never come,
But we cannot forget that in the estima-
tion of the government at all levels, such
creed or ideology exists more in words
than action.
A telling proof to this assertion is the
United Nations Millennium Develop-
ment Goals, MDGs, which lasted be-
tween the year 2000 and 2015, and was
among other intentions aimed at erad-
icating extreme poverty and hunger as
well as achieve universal primary edu-
cation, where Nigeria and other Africa
countries performed abysmally below
average,there are many more ways gov-
ernment actions and inaction impedes
achievement of balanced education.
To take one more example of such, it
could be recalled that in a unanimous
adoption of a motion moved by Hon.
Chinedu Emeka Martins entitled: “Call
for Abolishment (sic) of Acceptance
fee into Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria”
during the plenary presided over by the
Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, the house
described acceptance fee as exploitative
and called on Federal Government, to
immediately abolish the payment of such
fees in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
But today, despite such effort by the
house the practice remain unabated in
virtually all the public higher institution
of learning in the country.
With this non adherence by the ter-
tiary institutions of higher learning in
the country, the questions may be asked;
what the acceptance fee signifies. Why
must students pay acceptance fee for
admission they voluntarily expressed
interest and paid the examination fees?
Who will stop these Universities from
such practice since they have rebuffed the
house directives? Or must we as a nation
allow the useful and the useless like good
and evil go on together allowing our na-
tion to reap whatever fruit that comes out
in the nearest future?
Accordingly, this present menace
posed by this practice indicates a consid-
erably higher risk. And except the Feder-
al Government intervenes, the potential
consequence could be higher than that of
other challenges currently ravaging the
education sector.
By getting preoccupied with revenue
generation without consideration to the
students comfort or well being, the ter-
tiary institutions define leaning too nar-
rowly in a manner devoid of process and
outcome fairness, forgetting that if learn-
ing must persist, stakeholders must look
inward, reflect critically on their own be-
haviour, and identify the ways they often
advertently or inadvertently contribute
to the institution’s problems and then
change how they act.
Fundamentally, if we look at the present
challenge in our schools and conclude
that we don’t have mutual responsibility
to ensure that these children have access
to quality and affordable education, it
means the nation will be confronted with
two sets of challenges-first, gradual slide
of the educational system, and flooding
of the nation’s socioeconomic space with
graduates that are extremely educated
but ill-informed or misinformed.
To explain these points beginning with
the first point, India in the 1960s/70s viv-
idly represented an example of what be-
comes the fate of any nation that ignores,
politicizes educational system or allows
tribal/ethnic consideration to take place
of meritocracy when taking decision on
educational policies.
At independence, India, going by his-
tory, had so many outstanding people in
all fields of scholarship, but for a number
of reasons which ranges from; wastage of
decades in state planning and controls
that have begged it down in bureaucracy
and corruption; their caste system, which
has been the enemy of meritocracy-as
each caste demand its quota in all institu-
tions, whether recruitment into the IAS
or entrance to the universities, and the
endless conflict and wars with Pakistan
that made both poorer, India allowed
the high standards the British left them
to be lowered. There was less insistence
on meritocracy by examinations for en-
trance into top schools and universities,
the professions and the Indian civil ser-
vice (ICS). Cheating at examinations
became rampant, Universities allotted
their quota of places to MPs of their
states, who either give or sell these plac-
es to their constituents.
Regardless of what others may, Nige-
rians with critical interest believe that as
a nation, there is a very big lesson for us
to draw from this narrative as our gov-
ernment daily replicates these factors
that led to India’s down fall in the past .
More important than the above, until
the nation Nigeria tackles the shocking
phenomenon of declining standards
of physical infrastructures and the
near-total collapse of basic facilities
that ought to be functional in a tertiary
institution, and stamp out thoughtless
demand for fees of varying amounts
proposed by the school authorities
ahead of logic-which is financially
squeezing life out of the innocent stu-
dents and their parents, the nation will
like the Germans of old, continue to
experience challenges of youths unrest
occasioned by the nation’s educational
sector’s producing graduates that are
extremely educated but remained ill-in-
formed or misinformed.
It was factually supported that be-
tween 1930s and 1940s, many members
of the Nazi party in Germany were ex-
tremely well educated but their knowl-
edge of literature, mathematics, philos-
ophy, and others simply empowered
them to be effective Nazis. As no matter
how educated they were, no matter how
well they cultivated their intellect; they
were still trapped in a web of totalitar-
ian propaganda that mobilized for evil
purpose.
From the above, it is evident that be-
ing educated is not when one bags a
PHD, but when one is equipped to skill-
fully master the arts of ones vocation.
Nations spend millions of dollars to
create literate citizens in order to have
crime-free environment. When a youth
is educated, he or she would weigh their
thought before they act. An illiterate so-
ciety is a virus to the entire community,
state, and the nation as a whole.
While we wait for the Federal Gov-
ernment to choose the path we should
follow as a nation, one thing stands out.
Continuing with the present style of
education will never engineer national
progress but can only set the stage for
development collision.
Jerome-Mario Utomi (jeromeutomi@
yahoo.com. 08032725374), writes from
Lagos, Nigeria.
