Nigeria’s public education system has been on a free fall for decades. Curiously, instead of arresting the drift, the authorities and other stakeholders spend valuable time lamenting and feeling nostalgic about the good old days.
While quality education now appears to be a preserve of the super-rich, not even private institutions, with their fancy names, have been spared the pervasive standard-crisis. It’s no wonder, then, that for many years, this critical sector, which by existential design should shape the future of a society, has become so neglected, especially at the tertiary level.
The effect of this is an astronomical rise in the dearth of thirst for knowledge by many youths. What’s worse, is the prioritising of quick wealth and significant deprioritising of the essence of education among young people egged on by a nonchalant system.
A recent display of this worrisome trend, especially in the public tertiary institutions, came to light when authorities of the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja, announced that they asked 313 students to withdraw from the institution over poor academic performance in the first semester of the 2022/2023 session.
The school claimed that the withdrawal of the students followed the consideration of the report of the Academic Board Central Result Verification Committee at one of its meetings. The affected students cut across 17 departments and 28 programmes run by the institution.
Accordingly, National Diploma 1, Office Technology and Management with 43 students led the pack while National Diploma 1, Public Administration with 39; and National Diploma 1 Information and Library Science with 28 withdrawn students followed respectively.
Rector of the Polytechnic, Dr. Salisu Ogbo Usman, who chaired the Board, said the decision to send the students away was part of the resolve to maintain high academic standard and breed worthy academic ambassadors.
In 2015, The Federal University, Gusau, expelled 15 students for failing to meet up with their academic performances. The Vice Chancellor, Magaji Garba, said this at a news conference shortly after the university’s matriculation ceremony, recently.
He said students of the university were expected to be serious with their studies and perform up to standard, adding that any student, who scored below 1.0 Grade Point Averages (GPA), would be expelled. The vice chancellor, who did not disclose names of the affected students, said all the 27 programmes being offered by the institution were expected to be accredited soon.
In 2018, the Senate of the University of Ibadan advised 408 students of the institutions to withdraw over poor academic performance. The students failed to meet the minimum academic requirements. Most of the affected students were admitted when the post-UTME test was not conducted because of opposition to the exercise in the 2016/2017 session.
The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) Prof. Adeyinka Aderinto, however, insisted that the school would not lower its academic standards despite the financial difficulty it currently faces.
Clearly, the worrisome situation in the Kogi Polytechnic and elsewhere isn’t new. What it, however, shows is a lack of attention to the crisis, the surface of which we seem to have barely scratched.
Even for the much older generation, the glory days of the nation’s education sector has become somewhat hazy. Institutions which produced some of the best brains have become unrecognisable in the space of 60 years.
Putting the situation in comparative context, the engagement of foreign lecturers and students in the system, at the time, reflected not just standard but the quality of political leadership. Of course, the quality of education, then, manifested in the vibrancy of the student movement which led to robust engagements with the government on a wide range policy issues.
Today, even those who benefited from the advanced exchange programmes and government scholarships to top foreign institutions, find it puzzling how the standard could be so degraded in the country within that space of time.
It is pertinent to emphasise, in our opinion, that a strong educational system is not cheap. But with a determined leadership, it is doable because, over the centuries and after eons of civilizations, a strong educational system has proven to be the nucleus of societal advancement and preservation of any people and their socio-cultural milieu.
What is required in the circumstance, in our opinion, is a deliberate, determined and unselfish leadership. These qualities in leadership are non-negotiable in this noble pursuit. The nation’s founding fathers knew this much and more for they sacrificed their ego to ensure the people were properly educated and become enlightened to function effectively in an ever-changing world. Communities were inspired to jointly send their children to schools, there was a hunger for education.
Sadly, in our considered opinion, even those who benefitted from the huge sacrifices of that enchanting era couldn’t live up to the expectation of bequeathing a healthier education sector to those who came after them. However, in our view, it should not all be glum and gloom if only the ruling class can summon the political will to do the needful in pursuit of retrievable lost glory.
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