The Passport to Nigeria’s Future

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X

I happen to be one who is very passionate about the educational system in Nigeria. Well, I wasn’t until I dug further and realised that education (learning) could be very interesting. Education, our passport (authorization) to the future…

What has the Nigerian education system thrown at us?

At the basic and secondary level:

In the rural areas: classrooms under trees or in the hot sun, broken windows, leaking roofs, no chairs/tables, mud walls as writing boards, unqualified teachers and the good part, it is affordable. Well, how wouldn’t it be, when what they get is crap?

In the urban areas you get the comfort of everything (if the teachers have not been developed beyond the Nigerian university level, I cannot guarantee their qualification) then you have to pay though your sweat.

At the University Level: I urge private universities students not to think themselves having better educational qualification than the Government universities students. The same thing taught by most lecturers/professors in the government university is what is taught to you. Sadly, you pay more for it! Little or no university policy, no originality, absurd learning structures, plagiarized study materials…

Our educational system is running with a time bomb that will explode really soon. The effects are already in view. With students buying their grades where possible and educational policies clothed in ambiguities, we see our graduates unable to think! This is another reason for the high level of unemployment in the country. Truthfully, who will employ a graduate with an empty head? For this, I blame solely the Government. If they had not allowed greed eat them up, they would have taken time to look into our dead and almost buried educational system. Just a few institutions are trying to rebrand the Nigerian educational system. How far can a few go?

Benjamin Franklin said “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. Dear Federal, State, and Local Government, every year we hear about the billions and trillions of Naira in the budget for the educational system! What is the purpose of wasting all these money and yielding same results? With due respect Sirs, did not Albert Einstein say “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. I always hear my lecturer (Dr. Femi Gbenro Oyekan) say “If you are on the wrong track, except you retrace your steps to the origin of the fault, you are still on the wrong track”.

Help us retrace our steps! Our future is in our education and it fears me what the future of Nigerian will be when we are educating our leaders to be illiterates! Poverty eradication cannot be successful either until illiteracy is given high priority. “Hatred, intolerance, poor hygienic conditions and violence all have root in illiteracy…” –Abdul Qadeer Khan. Look deep into the policies you have thrown out at us and let there be implementations this time around!

Dum’i Franncisca Onwufuju

Leadership League Student, International School of Management Lagos

(20.02.2013)