There is now unanimity of opinion from knowledgeable and competent sources that Nigeria’s educational sector is gravely sick and in urgent need of comprehensive surgical overhaul; both from the policy direction and in the area of standards.

The question of whether the educational sector in Nigeria has collapsed is therefore a serious understatement, because empirical evidence suggests that what we should be doing right now as a nation is not lamentation over the spilled milk, but to provide quality body of knowledge on how best to bring about a positive and transformational turnaround, to save the younger generations of Nigerians from the impending anarchy that may be unleashed, should the decay in the educational system be sustained without any deliberate policy decision to have a radical and fundamental paradigm shift now.

Besides, many competent professionals, especially those in the core area of the educational sector, have also recognised that the survival of the Nigerian nation, as a viable, progressive and democratic society, will depend on the state of educational systems: beginning from the primary, post-primary and tertiary levels and also on how the political class and policy-enforcers decide to grapple with the emerging challenges that this enormous task poses.

From our investigative research on where the rain started to beat us in the educational sector (apologies to Chinua Achebe), we came up with the findings that prior to the erosion of values and standards in the 1980’s and 90’s, Nigeria used to boast a vibrant, progressive, highly and widely recognised educational system, which compared favourably with any other in developed societies, despite the fact that Nigeria is still classified as underdeveloped.

Related to the issue of the fast-collapsing educational sector is the all-important issue of the total collapse of the national value system; and what Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State told an audience recently in Abuja at a symposium by the Bishop Hassan Kukah Centre. He said that Nigerians generally have abandoned our long cherished moral and religious value system, and have rather embraced a new culture of consumerism and unbridled quest for wealth at all cost. The Holy Father Pope Francis had also during his inaugural mass, about a year and half ago in the Vatican City, also raised similar concern and called on humanity to have a rethink.

So, still debating the matter of our fast-declining educational standards, it is safe to state without any fear of contradiction that on the social front, the national value system has collapsed. Education which should be the nursery and relay point of positive values is itself being progressively crippled with corruption. This is supported, sadly, by quality body of evidence. For example, not too long ago, the anti-graft agency – Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission (ICPC) – even stepped into the matter of the erosion of our educational value when it launched what it called a ‘National Campaign against Sexual Harassment and Money-for-scores’ on the campuses of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions. Although it is not clear how far this anti-corruption campaign has gone, but the fact remains that today the moral fabric of the educational system has collapsed spectacularly.

Experts say that the sub-culture of examination fraud and forged or purchased paper certificates, describe the fibre of manpower, which graduates into the labour market to service and in time, become leaders of the Nigerian state and society. A tree diseased from its roots cannot produce healthy fruits, according to a time-tested aphorism.

As a result, there is now a national consensus that a diligent and comprehensive reappraisal of the Nigerian school system would reveal that we have a tragedy in our hands. The standard of education is undergoing a free fall; and nobody seems to be worried. It is like Darwin’s evolution theory in reverse. Instead of each successive generation of poor products to improve adaptively over preceding generations, what we have according to experts, is a progressive regression. In the 2014 West African Examination Council’s Senior School Certificate Examination, Nigeria recorded the worst all-round performance of just 14 per cent pass rate. This ranks as the most spectacular show of shame of a generation of students, who could not pass English Language and Mathematics.

Our findings show that the very poor quality of the different levels of educational system is an indication of the depth of decay at each level. Sadly, since the early 1980s, our educational system has become moribund, having been bedevilled by factors and circumstances which were not unconnected with our well-known and much talked-about vices of corruption, insincerity of our leaders and other woes.

In fact, the military governments had contributed so much to the collapse of our educational system than anything else. Could it be as a result of tribalism and nepotism? Could it be that this was a result of the low level of education achieved by the military brass, who hijacked political power back then? Or was it just plain ignorance of the largely less educated class of the enormity of the task at hand: recognising the importance of education in nation building? It could be recalled that Gen Sani Abacha went to the ridiculous extent of appointing military officers with virtually no rigorous academic qualifications as Administrators of federal universities and, in the process, bastardised the educational standards.

The consequences of these systemic and institutional lapses are what we are witnessing today in the unusual high turnover of ‘area boys’ in many states of the federation. Besides, cultism and manifestations of other moral vices have become overwhelming in public and private educational institutions across Nigeria. Consequently, the erosion of value system in schools have resulted in the involvement of many young persons in some anti-social and organised criminal activities such as armed robbery and kidnapping and prostitution; even as many suffer the effects of protracted unemployment.

Nigeria is also going through problems associated with the migration of our academics and young people to other countries (brain-drain) in search of the elusive greener pastures. This exit of valuable manpower contributes immensely to Nigeria’s underdevelopment, and general rot in the society.

The British educational system we inherited at independence was a straight course to progress. But we have, on our own, introduced a labyrinth and dysfunctional module that has seen most levels of educational system churning out half-baked graduates that are largely unsuitable for any serious-minded job and life after school. In the last three decades, education planning had been a knee-jerk enterprise, bereft of feedback mechanism and control. It is like Markov chain in mathematics where future development of each event is independent of historical events. In recent years, each minister of education would want to be identified and glorified with a new policy, even if there is nothing wrong with the existing policy.

At independence, it was 6-5-2-3, which meant six years in primary school, five years in secondary school, two years in higher school, and tree years in the university. In the mid 1980s, it was abolished on the flimsy excuse that students no longer do well in Higher School Certificate Examinations. Yet, Ghana retained its higher school and so did the United Kingdom. It is a well-known fact that it is almost impossible to gain entry into top five British universities, including Cambridge, Oxford, London School of Economics and Imperial College, etc., without Advanced Level certificate. The current 6-3-3-4 system is being run with eyes closed to its aims and objectives. The sound school system bequeathed to us at independence by the British has been deprived of its soul through bad leadership, corruption, frequent change of policy and poor planning.

In a School Certificate examination written in 1968 (during the civil war), Master David Adeoye and Miss Margret Ologun produced the best results in mathematics and health science respectively in Nigeria. They were students of Anglican Grammar School, Arigidi-Akoko, Ondo State. They were children of farmers with a meagre income. They achieved those outstanding feats partly because they had a sound primary education. All primary schools in Nigeria, including remote areas were good. Isn’t it ludicrous that some parents now pay up to N1 million per annum as fees for children in primary school?

It is a notorious fact that a lot of people who achieved fame and fortune in their different fields of human endeavours actually read in the early 1950s from their homes. Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) who owns one of the best private universities in Nigeria and one of the nation’s most successful legal minds took most of his early post-primary and tertiary educational lessons through correspondence, before actually enrolling in a formal academic environment.

Still on policy inconsistency, it would be recalled that the 1979 Constitution made the first six years of primary education compulsory. Recent years have seen a marked growth in educational facilities. Projected adult illiteracy rates for the year 2000 stood at 35.9 per cent (males, 27.7 per cent; females, 43.8 per cent). But even with the passage and enforcement of the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) Act, which addresses free and compulsory primary and junior school education for all Nigerian children but, sadly, not all states of the federation has the capacity and capability to access the funds meant for these educational activities. There are now up to 10 million out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria, according to some estimates from the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO).

The existence of this large number of out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria brings us to the issue of advance in education in Southern states, compared with the relative lag in the Northern states, which is said to reflect the contribution of Christian missions to the Nigerian educational system.

In 1994, there were 16,190,947 students in 38,649 primary schools; taught by 435,210 teachers. In secondary schools: 4,451,329 students were taught by 152,592 teachers. The pupil-teacher ratio at primary level was estimated at 37 to1. In 2001, the Federal Government reported that the falling standard of education in Nigeria is caused by acute shortage of qualified teachers in primary schools.

According to Ogbeifun and Olisa (Vanguard Online, July1,2001), about 23 per cent of 400,000 teachers employed in the nation’s primary schools did not possess the Teacher’s Grade Two Certificate (TCII), issued by the Nigeria Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, which was the minimum educational requirement one should posses in the nation’s primary schools.

Most of these schools are in dilapidated condition with facilities that have virtually collapsed, thereby exposing pupils to imminent danger. This shows that Nigeria has a disjointed and an opaque value system. For instance, the salaries of less educated local government councillors are higher than that of university professor.

There is therefore no doubt that something is obviously wrong with any society that does not take her educational system seriously.

As at 1995, public expenditure on education was 0-5 per cent of GDP. Till date, the Federal Government has been reluctant to implement fully the agreement reached with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since 2009, to improve facilities in the ivory towers. This led to the 2013 strike which lingered for quite some time before it was eventually called off, after almost one full academic year just after the striking teachers were settled with generous allowances. But the main issue of poor standard of facilities of learning in all the public universities is yet to be addressed.

Currently, no Nigerian university is rated highly globally. Instead, a recent report has it that certificates from some Nigerian universities are no longer accepted as entry point qualifications for postgraduate studies in some Ivy League universities in the Western world, going by the findings of a non-governmental organisation based abroad.

Nigeria’s yearly budgetary allocation to education hovers dangerously around 9 per cent; compared to Swaziland’s 26.6 per cent; Ghana’s 31per cent; South Africa’s 25.8 per cent and Uganda’s 27 per cent, etc. Instead of investing money in education, the Nigerian political elite prefers to loot public treasury, by diverting almost 80 per cent of funds meant for development into their private pockets, according to a World Bank report.

An Abuja-based lawyer, Miss Sylvia Nneka Okonkwo, during a chat on this topic, reminded me that it was Derek Bok who rightly stated: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

A lot of money has been wasted on workshops and seminars, without addressing the root cause of the problem. If our educational system is not cured of its infirmities, in the next say 10 years, our development process will ground to a halt. What is most disturbing is the indifference of our leaders to this decay in the school system. Worse still is the silence and nonchalance of those deprived, as if they are under a spell. Those who masquerade as leaders of the students in the universities go about marketing awards for money to politicians and care very little about the declining educational quality. The current Education Minister, Mallam Ahmed Shekarau, was accused of publicly burning books while he was the Governor of Kano State. And yet, today, he is the minister of such a serious cabinet level office as Education.

The alarming level standard of education has sunk in Nigeria was revealed in a recent interview and survey conducted by Mr Oluwole Osagie-Jacobs, an economist and chartered accountant. He interviewed 21 secondary school graduates; and to his amazement, only 5 out of them could divide the number 32 by 4. This question betrayed their poor knowledge of multiplication table as figures, 3 and 2 are not easily divided by 4. Out of the essays, just two could match that of a good primary six pupil in the year 1970.

The interview of university graduates was more revealing. A graduate of chemistry could not discuss the Periodic Table. The candidate with a degree in mathematics would definitely collapse if confronted with some questions from the old book, ARITHMETIC, by C. V. Durell. He was further convinced that more than 60 per cent of final year students of chemistry, mathematics and biology would fail the old GCE Advanced Level papers on those subjects.

The “Government,” says Sylvia Okonkwo, a lawyer, and I agree, “should hasten to save our schools.” Salvation, she stated, should start from primary school level. All three tiers of schools should be comprehensively equipped and staffed. Technical schools should be improved and their image enhanced.

Undoubtedly, education must be adequately funded, if quality must be guaranteed. In pursuing the ideals of quality, the Nigerian Education Research and Development Council (NERDC) should be strongly supported in its efforts at a curriculum reform towards greater relevance.

Teacher education and standard monitoring should be given adequate attention. The teachers and lecturers should be well paid and motivated, in order to attract the best brains and hands.

Finally, without treating education as a public-health issue that requires serious attention, the youth will continue to receive inferior education; and mass unemployment and armed banditry will continue to rise. The Nigerian nation will continue to have illiterates and half baked people as political leaders, even as the society will continue to have political parties without ideology, and Nigeria will continue to fall behind economically, socially and politically. Students must read their real hard core books and stay away from the undue distractions of social media.

•RIGHTSVIEW appears twice a week on Wednesday and Saturdays, in addition to special appearances. The Columnist, popular activist Emmanuel Onwubiko, is a former Federal Commissioner of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and presently National Coordinator of Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).

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