The teacher is like the candle that lights others in consuming itself. –Ruffini
Fellow country men and women, if you know your rights and obligations, you can position yourself positively and properly as a fit and proper person to be called a citizen of Nigeria. Your Right is your investment and the constitution is a guide towards the full realization of your rights within the government. Education is a right to be enjoyed by all Nigerians and not a privilege but sadly and unfortunately, it has become a rare privilege and subsumed under the dictates of Oil revenue and corruption in government circles.
Section 18-(1) of the Constitution states thus “Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels”. This section of the constitution cannot be achieved fully if government policy is not adjusted in the face of spirally private schools with exorbitant fees and abject neglect of the few remaining government schools.
Section 18-(3) states thus “Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy; and to this end, Government shall as and when practicable provide- (a) free compulsory and universal primary education; and
(b) free University education; and (c) free adult literacy programme. “
The omitted (b) could be the printers’ devil. Let’s take note of it but temper justice with mercy. The phrase “as and when practicable” was the evil intention of the military junta that framed the constitution. This phrase must be removed immediately to make way for affordable education. The entire gamut of section 18-(3) of the constitution quoted supra is realizable, affordable and practicable.
Legally construed and functionally speaking, Nigeria cannot boast of adequate educational opportunities at all levels. This is because it has become increasingly conspicuous that government is losing interest in education. The process of churning out teachers is nothing but a disappointment. We are presently confronted with an avalanche of graduates of various sorts and disciplines who, for lack of a better job, end up in classrooms as teachers. This should not be so. It is an aberration and a functional usurpation of professionalism. Teaching is not a function of graduation from a tertiary institution but a profession only obtained through training. An untrained lawyer should not be allowed to practice law. An untrained Doctor should not be allowed to practice medicine. Likewise an untrained teacher should not be allowed to teach children. Anything short of this will lead to illegality and quackery. Teaching is a profession and where it is left for the unprofessional to handle, mediocrity and abysmal educational cancer will thrive. This will in consequence retard the academic proficiency of our children and wards.
Kudos to the private schools that are daily springing up in our streets and crescents with or without accreditation most of which are owned by government personnel or their protégés. The impression is that government schools are neglected in the big cities and the private schools are getting a boom in admissions and patronage. The cliché that when the preferred is unavailable, the available becomes the preferred seems apposite. Government schools have obvious advantages if only with the affordable school fees and consequent affordable education. It gives equal opportunities to everyone to afford education. The neglect of the government schools is therefore neglect of affordable education and the Government should be held responsible for the rising un -affordability of education at least at the primary and secondary levels which form the nucleus of our educational foundation. The government should not wash their hands off schools. The private and state schools must be standardized and a systematic due process of accreditation, supervision and regulation put in place. As long as education remains un –affordable to the indigent, no matter the books, infrastructure, qualitative teaching staff, enabling environment and ease of accessibility you put in place, it will be a waste of resources and an exhibition of utter emptiness. Without pupils to enjoy these facilities, it will amount to action in futility. You cannot wink in the dark and expect to be seen. The activities of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) are yet to be fully grasped by many Nigerians. If their activities do not create affordable education, then the terms of reference must be re-addressed. The basic foundation for any educational programme is affordability. Education must be free and compulsory. This will remove our youths from street –begging and juvenile illiteracy. Adult literacy is none existent. Adult literacy schools and learning centers are insignificant. Only government officials go for higher Programmes. There are no continuous learning Programmes for the itinerant villagers, retirees and housewives. Career educationists and seasoned academicians should be put in positions of authority over our educational institutions and educational projects.
In most cases, the activities of government in relation to appointments into educational authorities and boards and execution of academic projects, run counter to due process and infringe on the provisions of the constitution which we are striving to uphold. Any person or official at whatever level or by any name called, whose children are not in Nigerian schools, will have nothing to contribute to the rise in our academic potentials. They are not sincere stakeholders in our academic zone and their sense of patriotism is suspect. The greatest culprits here are government officials and the privileged few.
Section 18-(1) of the constitution that states that government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels has been ridiculed and made nonsense of. The nonsensicality is because this provision cannot remain in our constitution without a continuous, systemic programme of scholarship and bursary awards to our indigent children. It is no longer news that the privileged children of our few privileged leaders attend privileged schools for the privileged children and obtain privileged education at the expense of the less privileged many. However, these few seemingly unpatriotic few appear to have no better choice in their decision. In the face of dwindling educational future, riotous academic environment and unstable academic system and Programmes, schools outside the country look inviting. The ubiquitous response of these Nigerians has always been “there are no good schools here” or “frequent strikes in our academic environment is making schooling here unacceptable.” I must admit that these are good stories emanating from policy makers in this country. One wonders therefore who will provide affordable education when the children of the policy makers are not part of the reform system.
The situation here is that private schools are allowed to charge unimaginable high school fees and the government seems to look the other way. When you look at the indices for this astronomical rise in school fees, you will not find. The consequence of this phenomenon is that there is a deafening rush of teachers to the private schools, not for the love to teach our children, but for the financial rewards by way of higher salary structure and easy acceptability without a strict dependence on absolute teaching qualification. Let us remind ourselves that these schools also have pupils who are there to learn and whose future should not be sacrificed on the altar of irregular academic consideration. The emerging result therefore is that the state schools harbor only teachers who may still be seeking greener pastures in private schools for better pay and pupils who are barely managing to remain there. For there to be adequate and equal educational opportunities for everyone, the government schools should and must be fully and conscientiously equipped and properly funded to compete favorably with private schools. The duties of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) must be enlarged to include the supervision of teachers’ qualifications and attitudinal competences and to execute judgments and sanctions where necessary. The myriad of private schools doting our streets and avenues must be scrutinized and re-certified. Their modus operandi must be re-confirmed and their registrations and ownerships investigated. These private schools must be standardized and those falling short of the set standards must be shut down or up graded. A body of renowned academicians must be put in place to check the exorbitant school fees charged in these private schools vis-à-vis the facilities that exist there. Only by this way can the provision of Section 18-(1) be given respect. The provisions of chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are practicable, enforceable and fundamentally necessary. The time to address the practicability of it is NOW. The dividends of democracy can only be measured by the number of lives that the democratic projects will affect. The greatest gain of government is to transform, for the better, the many lives of the greatest number of people. Anything short of this is self righteousness and manifest usurpation of the rights and privileges of the people by the government. Who should be held responsible for academic fraud? We must address academic fraud Now and protect our future from ignorance and bastardization of the academia.
Education must be made a priority in our Nation. We must adequately pay teachers their due and avert strikes. We must properly train teachers as teachers and nurture our future leaders from our environment and then the provisions of the constitution will be seen to be adhered to.