It never seemed likely that days, weeks or even months will arrive when
pupils and students would find the walls of our academic institutions too
dreadful to engage the learning process. Today, however, the Coronavirus
pandemic has hit hard on the system forcing the doors of our academic
institutions to be shut.
The Nigerian education system has suffered years of neglect. Calls for the
development of this too-important sector of the nation's economy has gone into
deaf ears with government after government promising to do so much but doing
too little to better the situation. Sadly, this pandemic has exposed us further
to decline and rot.
It's saddening that our children who are supposed to be in classes enjoying
the best quality academic environment are exposed to rot, dilapidated
buildings, lack of laboratories, unqualified teachers, and a host of other
challenges. And now having them to stay at home for this long, means we should
expect worsening scenarios.
Imagine all the challenges we were going through as a nation while our
children enjoyed the half-baked education. What happens now that the education
isn't available at all? I fear. a disaster is waiting in the future.
Government has been going to and fro about restarting our schools over
fears that the Coronavirus pandemic may explode. While the fears may be rife,
it's time for the government to look into our education system. It's time to
revisit the structures around which our education system was built.
The building block for the advancement of any society is her education
system. The quality of this nation's education sytem had led to a decline in
the national psyche. Wrong virtues like corruption, crime, are been promoted
ahead of the ideal creed of hardwork, integrity and faith.
It is still baffling that while the world is running fast with the
adaptation of information technology tools for the advancement of education, we
are arriving late. Yes, we may have made compulsory the teaching of computer
science in all levels of our acadminc system, sadly, we only touch the surface.
The result is that we produce people through this system who lag behind their
contemporaries elsewhere.
The application of IT tools in our acadmic insttutions could have limited
the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on the system. Our students could easily
have gone online to continue classes. WAEC and NECO wouldn't have needed to be
postponed as examinations could easily have been taken online. Our universities
too could still have thrived with students taking online classes. This however
isn't the case.
The rot in the nation's academic system has been the result of failure of
government at all levels to take the system seriously. Lecturers and teachers
can go on strike at will and there is no appropriate supervision.
This cornavirus pandemic is exposing our young people to crime and other
vices, people who should have been engaged if our schools were open. Imagine
all the millions of undergraduates in our tetiary institutions doing nothing at
the moment. A small one percent going haywire can do a lot of damage.
It's time for an all inclusive information technology driven education
system. Information technology shouldn't just be about having a laboratory of
five computers where students are only privileged to look but not touch. It
should be a comprehensive system where stuednts learn via these tools.
With tools like Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram and Zoom leading the way,
seamless commuinication between teachers and students can be created aiding the
teaching expereince. Concerted efforst should be put towards the application of
readily available technology for the advancement of the education system.
It's great that the senate has considered probing parastatals and
government agencies. The education sector should be the focus. Every year,
goovernment budgets certain amounts for the education sector which are often
grossly inadequate. In the face of this gross inadequacy, some persons still
steal this common wealth.
There has been several calls for the restructuring of the education sector,
but this too has gone into deaf ears. Those at the helm of affairs readily take
their children abroad to pursue academic programs while they allow the system
rot back at home. This pandemic has exposed them. They had to get their
children back home from all over the world.
Across Africa, Nigerian students lead the statistics for highest foreign
enrolment. Even in countries where English isn't the lingua franca, and where
our system could easily have outclassed, the statistics is still staggering.
Imagine Nigerian students in Sudan and Djibouti and even Somalia. The reason
isn't farfetched, the Nigerian education system has failed us.
Other countries are stealing on our failures, building more schools in
their territories than their population and attracting our students with
scholarships knowing that in the long
run, their econmy would profit.
It is time to put an end to this deterioration. We need to be directional
in the policies we create and we do need to be proactive in carrying out these
policies. We need to rebrand education in this country. Our teachers need to be
trained and retrained, creative thinking should be encouraged as well as
enterprise.
Our politicians should see education as the perfect empowerment, not money.
It's time to get our schools to work again.
Let us arise to build Nigeria
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