Education: 6-3-3-4 has failed, those behind it should apologise, says jonathan
By Daniel Idonor
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan Monday passed a vote of no confidence on the 6-3-3-4 system of education introduced in 1989, saying that it has failed to provide the solutions to the Nigerian education system.
The President, therefore, wants all those behind the introduction of the obviously failed public policy to as a matter of honour apologise to Nigerians.
It was in a response to agitation for a more functional and qualitative educational system, that a new educational system known as the 6-3-3-4 was introduced nation-wide by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The educational system stressed the point that a child shall spend six years in primary school, three years in Junior Secondary School, another three years in Senior Secondary and four years in a tertiary institution.
After a decade of the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 system of education, observers said there has been general lack of consistency in Nigerian’s educational policies, the system and national objectives.
This presupposes that the educational objectives of the 6-3-3-4 system of education had not been fully realized partly because of the inherent problems of the UPE which were not effectively tackled before the commencement of the new educational system.
The 6-3-3-4 system of education had the primary focus of meeting the educational needs of Nigerians and equipping the youths with sellable skills that would make them to be self reliant. Professor Babatunde Fafunwa was the Minister of Education at that time.
At an interactive session during a Presidential Stakeholder’s Summit, at the Transcorp Hilton, Jonathan lamented the picture painted by the National Universities Commission, NUC, of an assistant lecturer 1 becoming acting dean, saying the country was indeed in trouble if it was, wondering what quality of education the students would get.
A stakeholder, Florence Fabyan, pointedly asked President Jonathan if he was prepared to provide the required leadership to transform the system since that was the needed solution to the education problem to which he responded in the affirmative. Supporting Fabyan, Abe 1 of Uvwie Kingdom in Delta State, His Royal Majesty, Ovie Emmanuel Sideso, insisted only political will by President Jonathan would move education out of the doldrum it was presently in.
Another traditional ruler, blamed the problem in the sector to the politicisation of education, calling on a comprehensive data collection and quality access and equity as the only way to improving education.
He quarrelled with government’s continuous swallow hook, line and sinker of some of foreign policies at international conferences without taking the country’s peculiar situation into account, insisting it was also part of the problem responsible for the decay in the sector.
The Chairman House Committee on Education, Farouk Lawan, also supported joint funding and went ahead to advocate parental contributions, lamenting that the value of education and the curriculum that is taught in higher institutions had become irrelevant to the overall needs of the country.
The lawmaker discussed the issue of corruption in the education sector and called for accountability in the system.
The Executive Secretary National Universities Commission (NUC), Julius Okojie, spoke on the low quality of entrance into the university and the need for strict regulation.
Okojie said morality on the part of higher education administrators is very crucial saying that with morality there cannot be standard in the system.
He spoke on the quality of lectures in the different institutions and noted that there is no system in the world that can develop when those doing the teaching are not qualified.
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Executive Secretary, Dibu Ojerinde spoke on the factors militating against education, especially the issue of space availability, discrimination in course choices and the quality of teachers saying that if these issues aren’t resolved education cannot move forward.
He wondered why nobody wanted to become a teacher yet everybody wants to go to school and why everybody wants to eat yet nobody wants to study agriculture, adding that the enrolment to these courses were low.
Ojerinde also spoke on the inconsistent academic calendar and the years of graduation and said government must do something to regularise it.
Ojerinde lamented the level of examination malpractices in the education system and noted that punishment must be meted out to the culprit to checkmate the ugly trend.
National Examination Council (NECO), said findings reveal that the syllabus were never covered hence the students were always scared of examination resulting in examination malpractice. They attributed the mass failure in the school system to lack of adequate teaching and teaching infrastructure.
Professor Addison Wokocha, Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), blamed the teachers at all the levels of education as being responsible for the poor foundation in the country.
He lamented that most state governments do not even employ qualified teachers to teach in the respective schools and noting that in most cases, state governments resorted to deploying members of the National Youth Service (NYSC) to teach in state schools even when they are not qualified to teach. He revealed that the TRCN has resolved to stop the deployment of unqualified teachers to teach in any Nigerian schools.
