BY IYASE NWADIALOR
EDUCATION being a major catalyst to an all round development to any nation cannot be over-emphasized, whether economically, socially, politically, culturally, religiously or technologically.

The controversy as to whether the standard of education in Nigeria is rising or falling has raged on for some time now among educational experts ranging from the primary through secondary to the tertiary level.

On the other hand some educationist in order to justify the purported growth of the profession have tried to convince Nigerians that the standard of education is rising because there are now more institutions and that many more Nigerians have access to education and can express themselves in foreign languages other than their mothers tongue.

They have also claimed that the possession of educational paper qualification is one of the indices of high standards. For example, there are more literate Nigerians, more trained teachers, more university graduates and more tertiary institutions, both publicly and privately owned.

There is another school of thought which claims that despite all the foregoing achievements, the standard of education in Nigeria is on downward trend.

It is difficult for anybody to convince Nigerians in the present circumstances of exam malpractices, special examination centres, fake educational certificates, fake admission syndicates, hungry-author lecturers, dearth of textbooks in our libraries and the declined in the reading culture among our children and wards among other factors that the standard of education in Nigeria has gone any better than the pre-independence era.

When the universities of London and Cambridge conducted Secondary School Leaving Certificates or the General Certificate of Education, Nigeria students competed favorably with their Africa and Western counterparts, even as they were taught by grade two certificate holders, diploma in education holders and a few graduates, most of whom were not professionals.

But today, the minimum qualification stipulated by the Federal Ministry of Education for the teaching service in the Nigeria Certificate in Education, NCE, even in the primary school.

The question then arises: Are our present students who are brought up by NCE graduates, post-graduate teachers and professors better than the students who were taught by old standard six teachers, teachers grade three certificate holders, teachers grade two certificate holders, teachers grade one certificate holders, GCE ordinary and advanced level holders?

It is no longer news that Nigerian graduates are rated very low by the international community, even as no Nigerian university is among the first 100 universities on the globe. This assumption, however, does not refute the other fact that Nigerian professionals and academicians rank among the best in the USA, United Kingdom, UK, and other developed countries.

I am aware like many of my readers that soft spot and acceptance of President Goodluck Jonathan by most Nigerian voters which earned him landslide victory in the April 2011 elections, among other factors, was largely due to his academic laurels and I am convinced that henceforth the experience of recruiting our head of state from Ivory Tower may continue.

However, many of the policies on education inherited by the administration may have to be reviewed for better performance of the sector and to the benefit of a great majority of the poor masses of this country.

I  know that some of the views expressed here may not go down well with some of my friends and die-hard capitalists. One may ask why education must be commercialised in a country where over 70 percent of the population live below poverty line?

Why must the federal and state governments shirk their basic responsibility of providing free and qualitative education to the masses rather than approving private universities to all and sundry, investors whose intention is to acquire surplus value?

Why again must public schools be handed over to their so-called former owners not realising that the missionaries of old are no longer what they used to be in terms of discipline, morality and overall general social control.

Are we not aware that some of the present private primary and secondary schools operate in residential areas without play grounds, laboratories, libraries and ventilated classrooms? Is the Ministry of Education not aware that most teachers in the private schools do not possess the minimum professional qualifications and that promotion from one class to another is determined by payment of exorbitant school fees?

Is it a secret that principals or headmasters of these mushroom and Lilliputian schools have never opened any page of textbooks on the principles and practice of education, while others who may have retired as teachers are either obsolescent or too weak to prepare lesson notes for effective delivery?

The point is that the environment in most of these private schools is grossly unconducive for teaching and learning .How then do Nigerians expect enhanced standards in such environment?

Another problem which has contributed immensely to the perceived fall in the standard of education is the attitude of government to the teaching profession. In almost all the states in this country, the teachers are the last to be paid their monthly salaries even as a graduate teacher earns less than a primary six certificate holder in a hospital.

The sheer fail of numerical strength and overhead cost does not render a teacher a second class citizen who must wait for other workers to take their salaries first and rush to the market to procure the scarce commodities at a cheaper rate before the teachers take their turn later with more stringent market forces.

I am not a teacher but I know that if the Jonathan administration is genuinely interested in raising the standard of education in the country, he must not only borrow a leaf from the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN manifesto but also improve the lot of the down-trodden teachers of this country.

“You can lead a horse to the stream but you cannot force it to drink water”. One can visualize a typically unmotivated, aggrieved, angry and shabbily dressed teacher sitting down in his/her classroom with a lugubrious face asking the students to recite folktales one after the other, while in the higher institutions or secondary schools, the teachers may be found digressing from the subject matter on the timetable telling stories and castigating the status quo out of annoyance.

One pertinent message being canvassed is that the university autonomy which has been gradually eroded by successive government policies, including the Joint Admission Matriculations Board, JAMB, should be restored by the Jonathan administration.

Furthermore, rather than establishing a University in every senatorial district, government should increase the budget for education sector to at least 25% which is to be spent in providing adequate infrastructural facilities for the existing universities and other institutions of learning.

Above all, the private schools and universities must be supervised by the Ministries of Education and National Universities Commission (N.U.C) to ensure that they compete favorably with public institutions and that their goal is not limited to profit making alone to the detriment of standards.