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Does The Nigerian Education System Prepare Students For The Work Environment?refuse to answer to the affirmative. In
the light of this essay, the reply is
synonymous to these queries: Can Nigeria
become an industrialized society without
fundamental education system? Can
Nigeria meet Her national development
challenges without copious investments in
human capital development? These are
views and issues directly involved. At the
end of this essay, I believe you will share
my opinion. `
Background To Nigeria’s Education
System.
Basically, Nigeria has distinctly three
systems of ‘education’ – if one goes by its
layman’s definition as “a process of
teaching, training and learning to improve
knowledge and develop skills” – viz the
indigenous system, where children and
emerging adults learn skills in form of
apprenticeship, as well as duties of
adulthood; the Islamic education which is
part of religious duty, engages its
students in the learning of Arabic and the
Quran by rote; and lastly, the western-
styled Education [which is the aspect of
this essay in relation to Nigeria and its
juxtaposition with the ‘Work
Environment’].
Since 1950, The Country has developed a
three-tiered system of primary, secondary
and higher education based on British
model, a mere reflection of the colonial
policies of Education for Africans. After
many years and minimal changes, the
present education system is not different
from how it was in 1950.
The Status Quo
The present Universal Basic Education
(UBE) scheme adopts the 9-3-4 style that
insists on a compulsory minimum of nine
years of schooling for every Nigerian
child, replacing the erstwhile 6-3-3-4
system that offers six years of primary
schooling, three years each spent in
Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary
schools and a four-year stay in the
Nigerian university.
The present UBE’s 9-3-4 scheme
proposes that at the end of three years of
Junior Secondary education, students
should be at liberty to attend technical
and vocational or proceed to the Senior
Secondary level. Instead, students are
rushed through the Senior Secondary
schools, a portion of them hops into
universities then graduate and now finds
it hard to remove the ‘unemployed’ tag
on themselves. Is it because there are no
vocational schools made available? or the
Student do not have a ‘proper orientation
of education’ before entering the job
market?
Without doubt, the educational system of
any country should be designed to
transmit the values, attitude and norms
from one generation to another as well as
to train skilled manpower to drive and
sustain the economy.
The Nigerian story is different whereas
students have to content themselves in
libraries with dust-covered textbooks that
several researches and innovations have
bypassed for decades.
Apart from lack of good books, there are
other factors such as no incentives for
indigenous researches and deficiency of
replaceable laboratory equipment.
One researcher once made it clear that
since the 1980’s, Nigeria has had the
lowest number of indigenous engineers
per capita of any Third World country.
Unfortunately, nothing has been done to
rectify the situation.
Infact, At one time, the teaching of
English alone, which has been the
language of instruction, was so poor that
university lecturers complained of inability
to comprehend the works of their
students!
The main problems of the education
sector does not include lack of books et al
(as said above) for these are only evident
characteristics of a failed system. The
Nigerian Education is being disturbed by
lack of adequate funding; no proper
motivation for teachers and staff; and
general poor learning and teaching
environment.
The funds, as meager as they are
available, are apparently being looted by
the administrators and no-one is held
accountable for the well-being (read
‘illness’) of the system. The corruption of
majority of educational administrators as
well as that of the policy-makers can be
said to be worse than that of Oil thieves
and politicians. As a result of their sins,
the entire system is in shambles.
The poor state of education in Nigeria, is
reflected by the recent incessant mass
failure of Nigerian students in the West
African Examination Council (WAEC) and
the National Examination Council (NECO)
examinations. These two agencies test
students leaving Secondary schools across
the country.
As regards examinations in Nigeria; the
basic style of teachers in schools, is to
coach students on how to increase their
scores and making them ‘test-taking’
experts. Creativity, critical thinking and
civic-mindedness is thrown outside the
classroom window. Of course, alongside
with motivation, empathy, self-discipline,
honesty and sense of ethics: important
assets in a work environment.
The average Nigerian student assumes he
only needs to cram to pass and have an
impressive certificate to present to
prospective employers only to be
employed and found out to be wanting in
work ethics and discipline.
Students who are very good at
memorizing (read ‘cramming materials’)
are perceived as ‘smart’ because of their
ability to produce higher scores and
grades.
The Nigerian student passes tests and
examinations without understanding
indepth the subject matter. He may even
lack essential academic skills such as
research methods and writing skills which
make learning and education rich and
meaningful. After the end of the so-called
‘Industrial Attachment’, instead of being
retained due to credible job performance,
He is ejected. Then, non-nationals are
employed and we raise alarms that
“expatriates have taken over jobs meant
for home indigenes”.
And why not? We have heard cases of
graduates of ‘accountancy’ that cannot
prepare a proper ledger and of ‘engineers’
that cannot even loosen the screw of an
engine. The story of the Nigerian
education system is a story of shame.
The Way Forward
In 2002, former president George W.
Bush of the USA signed the No Child Left
Behind Act which stipulates that erring
schools and districts will be held
accountable for failure to meet the
testing requirements and proper
standard. If the Nigerian education has
any lesson to learn from that, it should be
policy recommendations. This is a wake-
up call for educational policymakers in
Nigeria.
I digress here to rebuff the Nobel Prize
Laureate, Proffesor Wole Soyinka’s call for
a shut-down of varsities (and indeed, the
whole system, ) for two years. I do not
intend to argue the wisdom of the
Laureate’s call but I strongly believe that
what the system needs are ‘common-
sense’ changes. It is a complicated
process, I agree but “closing school(s) has
no guarantee that what will replace them
will be better”. The changes should
include strengthened curricula that match
those in developed countries, greater
access to educational resources,
professional development et cetera. Still,
it is important that it is not only a policy’s
creation that is acknowledged but its
implementation matters more.
Over the years, Nigeria has been said to
invest less in Education, which is critical to
building a viable economy. Developed
countries around the world could not
have become what they are today
without substantial investment in human
capital development.
In human capacity framework, the
economic prosperity and progress of any
nation depends on its human capital. And,
improving human knowledge and skills
increases the individual’s productive
capacity. In other words, Nigeria needs to
improve its magnitude of funding and
investment into Education with proper
checkpoints to ensure accountability.
Lastly, the Nigerian Education system
needs experienced and well-qualified
educators with the needed capabilities
and competencies to transform this
“valley of dry bones” of a system into a
“living, learning communities” and thus
train high quality graduates that would
stand their ‘grounds’ in job challenge.
In conclusion, We should realize that
when a part of a system is dysfunctional,
it affects the facets of the entire system.
The poor state of educational standard
and hence, its resulting incompetence of
our graduates, has affected our economy.
It has increased the rate of youth
unemployment and youth-related crime
rate.
Everyone including politicians,
policymakers and employers often insist
that they want the Nigerian graduate to
be above par but he lacks the tools to
tackle the problems posed in his work
environment.
A trained professional should be able to
tackle any challenge at work, just like a
potter handles his pottery. As for the
query of this essay, the answer still
remains an emphatic 'Nay!'.
©Olumide Ikotun, 2013
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