FALLING STANDARD OF EDUCATION AND IT’S REMEDY!
It appears we have a long way to go in putting our heads together to develop and coordinate this country with emphasis on the present and future generations of the Northern people in Nigeria.
In both boarding and day secondary schools our students were forced under duress to be disciplined but not trained to be honest. Or, be kind to a neighbor or colleague.
Parents, Religious leaders and Educational Institutions play a significant role in shaping the destiny, thinking, ambition, honesty, discipline, etc in our children’s lifestyles.
Faulty foundation emanating from the families and schools produced what is currently happening in the country and the North, in particular.
Every one of us blame the poor parents for sending their children to beg or sell marketable products on the streets. Almajirci does not belong to this category but it does, if a child is sent to read and memorize Quran from an assigned popular Arabic Teacher and the child found himself/herself begging for alms from the people on the streets.
I attended Quranic School and did ‘Karatun Allo’ in the 1960s when the Islamiyya Schools were non-existence. The Arabic Teacher sourced his income from the weekly contribution/sadaka(charity) from the parents of the children. This particular aspect did not favor him to send his Almajirai to beg for food/alms from the people on the streets.
We were doing well despite the fact that the Malam (now of blessed memory) used to jokingly laughed at us and told us in Hausa language whenever we came back from the primary school, that “Bokoko A Wuta.” Meaning “Western Education in Hell Fire” or what is now known as “Boko Haram” today!
Once a pupil secured admission into post primary institution, he/she has passed the stage of Quran memorization whether one has graduated or not. What he/she has learnt would remain endlessly in his memory without forgotten.
Secondly, the revised educational policy and its curriculum in the country, i.e. 6-3-3-4 was not for the interest of our pupils as well as for the educational establishment in the northern Nigeria.
It brought about sadness and frustration in the running of both primary and tertiary institutions.
Why and how did this new educational policy find it’s way into North’s educational system only the mischievous will tell you!
Where were we when the Teachers’ Training Colleges (TTCs) which were well established and harnessed being scrapped and forgotten?
With this new faulty educational reform, do you know that not all graduates, nowadays would address you in good and proper English? Or, tell you where the geographical map of the country? Or, even tell the historical background of the two important religions in the world, Islam and Christianity?
Allow them write letters for you, before they finish writing them, you would not know whom the letters were addressed to.
Ask them to differentiate between formal or informal letters and before you know it things would have turned upside down!
What I am saying is this, If a University/Polytechnic graduate can not effectively communicate in English, how do you expect him/her to give you a report or takes minutes of a meeting, not to talk of how he will teach the children at the school?
Calling a spade-spade is necessary if we want move forward and succeed.
There were many factors responsible in this mess or unfortunate ways of making parrot learning in our schools. The Teachers’ Training Colleges ( TTCs) must be brought back. In short, bring back our TTCs, if we want an efficient and effective training and learning for both the Teachers as well as the Students/Pupils in our Schools.
Majority of the leaders, or civil servants as well as public servants do not possess the required knowledge to lead the country. Most of the appointments/recruitment made in the country were not made with good intention.
They are based on personal interest, aggrandizement and not on merit. How would you expect good governance and running of University/Polytechnic to be in order for God’s sake?
We need to put our House in order to make any meaningful analysis on why we cannot do away with indecency, bribery and corruption. Several factors played a role but capacity to handle an assignment with transparent honesty was the one lacking behind.
There was a move by some state governments in the North to ignore the national policy on education with a view to reverting to the establishment of TTCs.
Simply, the issue involves the state Governor to pass an executive bill to the state house of assembly and before you know it, a Teachers’ College was established.
When political leaders were addressing an audience, they were happy and talking nicely but not necessarily to implement what they meant for the people.
The TTCs were far better than the graduates qualifying from the Colleges Of Education nowadays.
In those days, before One qualifies for a National Certificate On Education (NCE) from an Advance Teachers’ College (Now replaced with Colleges Of Education) he/she must be a qualified primary school teacher having passed the 9 papers including Class teaching and Principles Of Education.
Present graduates of most NCE holders shy away from class teaching because they find it difficult or cannot comprehensively write lesson plans which form the basis of effective teaching at both primary and secondary schools level.
Hence, the failure of Nigeria to have everything half baked e.g Teachers in primary and higher education, Doctors in our Hospitals, Professors in our Universities, Politicians occupying public offices, etc.
We learnt of several female students from Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges Of Education, etc on how they were being harassed, betrayed or abused by the lecturers because they refused to succumb to their needs. See! How lecturers facilitated dishonesty, deceits and malpractices to satisfy their personal interests?
Therefore, the root cause of our present predicament was initiated, planned and administered by ourselves and not by anybody else.
The most important factor in the establishment of TTCs was to produce the best caliber of Teachers as well as to have an outstanding and most brilliant students from the primary, up to the tertiary institutions.
At the TTCs level, we have two categories of students. Those who passed the final exams were the ones to get admission into the Colleges Of Education or they may decide to teach in primary schools with higher grades on monthly salary paid to them than the failed ones.
Those who failed the TTCs exams, at least they are better off and be abe to teach effectively than the present NCE holders who cannot detect between failure and success, yet they were paid salaries at the public expense.
Again, the failed TTCs students have more chances in every exams to resit the papers they failed until they succeed.
With the deterioration of the falling standard of education, we were forced to abandoned public schools for the private ones for our children to get better education.
The ironical part of the whole drama is that majority of those belonging to elite family attended public schools.
Why? Was it our grand design? It was because those leaders who were in charge of the affairs of the Region remained focus, visionary, and steadfast in our cause to make us great.
Today, we are dancing to their tunes because they made us proud of ourselves including our friends and relatives without knowing us, and how we would be in the future.
Today, we are making analysis on the societal complex and its imbalance as a result of having no vision for future generations.
We must address ourselves to the underlined issues and provide solutions as it happened to us when they were tirelessly looking for solutions to our survival.