By Dr. Sam Amadi
I had a touching conversation with a young Nigerian lady who just returned from graduate studies abroad. She expressed to me her determination to work in the education sector.

She does not want to sign up formally with any of the elite schools in Abuja because she believes that she would be trapped in an empty structure that would not allow her to make the sort of impact that would meet her dreams. She feels that Nigeria children are being left behind by the kind of education they are receiving. The adults have mortgaged tomorrow for the revelry of today.

I was moved to share with her my initiative with Mr. Ike Onyechere of the Exam Ethics to organize education stakeholders politically in a manner that they can lift the profile of education in the policy agenda.

In spite of the many policy initiatives on education by government education has no political champion. And until we have the champion who makes education his or her own agenda, our children will continue to drink from the dry cisterns of yesterday.

That is, those of us who still have their children in Nigeria schools.

So, in light of my conversation with the lady and the strategic importance of education to the survival and sustainability of the Nigerian state, I will excerpt some of the views I expressed at the consultative conference of the Joint Education Stakeholders Action Coalition in September 2010 for my column. The issues I raised remain critical to our development after 50 years of independence.

The problem with education in Nigeria is that the institutions for managing education whether at the local or national level are weak and inefficient. Because of the democracy deficit in our polity these institutions are themselves not transparent and accountable. Consider the case of the National Teachers Institute, the prime institution for training of teachers.

How efficient is this institution? Who conducts oversight and insight reviews of the National Teachers Institute? Every year we pour billions into the institution without demanding policy and program mandates. We don’t go back at the end of the year and review how this bureaucracy has improved the quality of teachers in the country and how this has impacted on quality of education.

It is heartening that the new Minister of Education has refused to grant approval to the management of the institute to commence expansion program that will allow it award degrees until she is satisfied that it has the capacity to effectively perform its mandate.

This problem is caused mainly by the legislative tradition in Nigeria. In the United States there are sunset laws. These laws are so called because they create agencies that have legality for a period of years. After that period, congress will review the performance of the agencies and if not satisfied that they are adding value it will refuse to reauthorize them through law.

So, those agencies die natural death. In Nigeria, we have institutions that have outlived their usefulness like the National Teachers Institute (NTI) and the Joint  Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) that should be dead or completely reformed being allowed to waste public funds and add no value to quality education in the country.

Because the National Assembly and state assemblies fail in legislative oversight we are saddled with the burden of agencies that cannot deliver on mandate. This adds to the crisis of education in Nigeria

Let me make a small point about the philosophy of education in Nigeria. Professor Okonjo takes this point headlong in his book. Suffice it to say that we cannot get our bearing right until we succinctly articulate a national policy on education. Both the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) and the scrappy 7-Point Agenda and Vision 2020 documents articulate a national policy on education.

But a policy is not a policy if it is not internalized into the management of education and communicated effectively to stakeholders. This policy should invigorate private and public sector engagement in education. My own view is that our policy on education should be two tracked.

First, we need to increase the base of education in Nigeria by ensuring that almost anyone who wants has access to tertiary education. The second track is to develop world-class education for the specially gifted and the highly motivated. Whereas we must ensure that millions of Nigerians acquire university education of varying quality, we must ensure that the best and the brightest have access to world class university education.

This means that we must bring to an end the tyranny of mediocrity. We must end this uniformity. We should have our first class, second class and third class universities.

This smart deregulation ensures that the best and the brightest attend our own Harvard, Yale and Cambridge. This is one way we can be sure that we can compete in the global economy of tomorrow where the best jobs go to the most skilled.

The answer to the problem of the education sector lies in a strong political action on behalf of public education. Strong political action does not require that education advocates and activists should enlist in partisan politics and contest election as governors and legislators.

No, we should not all turn into politicians. But we can all be politically engaged. Those of us who care about the state of education in Nigeria, either because we are employed in the sector or because our wards are trapped in Nigeria’s dysfunctional schools, should all come together and form a strong lobby on behalf of education.

It is a year of political campaigns. In first quarter of 2011 we will be electing President and Governors, the big men and women who hold the fate of education in their hands. This is the time to organize all stakeholders in the education sector into a formidable lobby and political action group. We have seen how such politically organized groups have succeeded in raising issues onto the policy agenda table in developed democracies. We can do the same.

The starting point is to sustain and realize the objective of this coalition. We have to sharply define the objective of our coalition. Then we develop a comprehensive and highly respect policy brief on the reform of education in Nigeria. This policy document should be of the highest quality and peer-reviewed. We will invite all presidential and gubernatorial candidates to enter into negotiation and deliberation with the coalition to shape up their policy platforms on education to the demands of the document.

Based on these negotiations and deliberations the coalition can make endorsement of candidates.

Let no one deny the huge political impact of the endorsement of leaders of the education sector. At the minimum, this process will win us the handsome reward of having most of our recommendation part of campaign manifestos.

What is required to make this work is that the leaders gathered here today commit to bold actions to redeem the education sector and place confidence in the leaders of this movement to lead the way. We are big and passionate enough to cause a revolution sector. And we can start it with bold political action.

Make no mistake about it, poverty, underdevelopment and other social crises are products of political bargains. The rich and the privileged are always striking bargains that serve their interests, leaving behind the poor and the under-privileged.

The poor and under-privileged can get together and reverse things. What then should stop us from pushing forward with this revolutionary initiative? Nothing! Let’s go!