The Trouble with our Education is that we do not realise we are in trouble

Daniel Nengak

A few weeks ago I sat by my computer while my friend Rotimi Olawale attempts to ‘tweet’ recent developments from Nigeria’s education sector to me. Apparently, the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) was on a television programme that evening revealing to Nigerians certain moves Nigerian education authorities were making. As I reflected after we had vigorously debated the proposed policies on the social networks and resolved that we are not quite headed the right way.

You may recall that in January 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan had, while presenting awards to 52 best NYSC corp members also offered them automatic employment into the civil service and awarded them scholarships to undertake both Masters and Ph.D. studies in any institution in any part of the world. That evening, more recently, the NUC boss had announced a similar offer. 

He had reported that the President has directed the NUC to design a scheme to sponsor first class graduates from Nigeria to any top 15 university in the world. If you are wondering how and why the NUC was reduced to preparing candidates for the top 15 universities of the world, you are not alone. But these are very juicy offers that many Nigerian youths would wish they benefit from – but I am not qualified; I was not the best Corper nor did I earn a first class degree.

If you have paid any attention to national and regional examination results of Nigeria you will be amazed. It seems increasingly obvious that the pass mark of 5 credit passes in NECO and WAEC Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE) is beyond the reach of majority of candidates. 

JAMB UTME results are in my opinion, a little more positive although I wonder why this is so since most students sit for both examinations. Studying in a Nigerian university is not an easy feat; the odds are amazingly high that an applicant will not gain admission. In 2012, we learned that 1.5 million students took JAMB’s UTME; but we also knew from earlier reports that Nigeria’s 100 universities only have a combined capacity of about 100,000 places for beginners annually. So we know that whatever happens, 1.4 million (14 out of every 15) JAMB applicants will not get into the Universities in 2012.

Over the coming years, many youths who do get into the Universities would be confronted with rapists, robbers, cultism, exam malpractices and grade-fixing cartels, sex-for-grades, nepotism and corruption, plagiarism and other ills before they graduate. They will also worry about lack of accommodation, strikes, acute electric power shortages, school fees hikes, the financial situation of parents and sponsors (or the possibilities to work and pay their way through school). Note, whenever they graduate, only a tiny minority would earn the first class degrees to qualify for NUC’s scholarship. As the rest plough miserably through the labour market, I worry that perhaps the NUC has combined the gold, the silver and the bronze medals and awarded them to the first class scholars.

There is unemployment across every level of education (PhD, Masters and Bachelors) – and that is not unique to Nigeria. Also, those who earned first class degrees or graduated from prestigious foreign institutions are not immune from unemployment either. So it does not seem very clear what the government wants to achieve through this selective programme of unlimited (unbudgeted?) and foreign training for first class degree holders and youth corp graduates who were outstanding (some having executed outstanding projects like renovating schools with financial resources from God-knows-where).

One wonder if the Government is really convinced that there is a shortage of Masters and Ph.D. holders in Nigeria (when was the last time the Federal Civil Service Commission recruited new civil servants, though?). Perhaps the Government thinks that Nigeria is under-represented in the top 15 foreign institutions of learning. 

One also wonder if the vacancies that the foreign-educated scholars are needed to fill is only open to the Government-trained scholars – because we know many other young Nigerians with similar degrees who do not seem to realize that the government needs them to fill certain postings. It could be valid to speculate that the Nigerian universities are incapable of giving the type of education that our Government envisages for the scholars it is sending abroad – but that would be a question for the Government itself to try to answer.

What one worries about is that the Government’s reward system in education as exemplified by these scholarships is excessively selective. With this policy, the message to Nigerian students is simple: if you don’t get a first class, I know you not. This might help a lazy student to work harder, but it may also inspire the corrupt minded student to embark on schemes. To the youth corp member, the message is: whatever you do, get on the award list. And it is doubtful that teaching in an obscure primary school every day for a year would get one on the awards list. As the government has rolled out its initiative, it is critical for us youths to reflect on what our country needs of us. 

We have to provide policy review and feedback to our leaders and to evaluate how sustainable such policies will be. Perhaps in 20 years, every first class degree holder and the best corp members in Nigeria would have returned with the best foreign PhD. The question we ask is “then what?”