In the face of our
mounting and colossal nationally challenges; in the midst of our
appallingly collapsing educational institutions, which in fact, is at the
root of most of our national calamities that currently threatens our
national cohesion and development, I write this piece with a clear intent
in mind - to provoke a new line of thinking among all Nigerians at home
and abroad. I write this piece to sound the trumpet, to gust the
atmosphere with an urgent message for social, economic and political
redress of our collective irresponsibility that has thus far made an open
mockery of us among nations. I write this piece to beckon on all Nigeria's
intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders and all citizens to pause
and think about our history, and make succinct assessment of the legacies
that we have built for our generation and the ones to come. For too long,
we have blamed one another; we have accused one another; we have fought
political, social, and economic battles together. Now is the time to
collectively fight one more fight - the fight to offer every Nigerian
citizen, the unequivocal right to quality education.
Seeing the
ever-increasing youth unemployment, insecurity, arm robberies and
terrorism being perpetrated with the involvement of energetic youths, who
should either be productively engaged in employments or educational
trainings that ought to advance Nigeria, but are not; and observing the
reality that thousands of qualified young Nigerian secondary school
graduates are unable to gain admission into our universities yearly
because of the lack of adequate educational institutions and the failure
of JAMB as a system, I cannot, but urgently alarm the nation that such
unacceptable development in our beloved nation holds nothing, but a
sinister future for us should the pattern be allowed to continue. Thus,
if we continue to ignore the exigency to educate Nigeria's children in the
midst of our vast wealth, the 21st century would witness the irrevocable
failure that will make our children and us the shame of the black race.
Should we continue to neglect our primary, secondary and higher
institutions of learning as in the last few years, we would have succeeded
making slaves out of our children in the 21st century. Therefore, as a
concern Nigerian, I make avid humanitarian plea on behalf of all Nigeria’s
children, young men and women that we must address the quandary of our
primary, secondary and university education. In the spirit of solidarity
for our nation and its quest for development and peaceful coexistence, I
lay the case of our primary, secondary and university education at the
doors of our political and religious leaders, as well as at the doors of
every parent and all Nigeria's intellectuals at home and abroad.
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In this 21st century and
under our current democratic dispensation, where for the first time,
Nigeria’s President - Goodluck E. Jonathan, holds a PhD level of
education; and unlike any other time in our national history, we have the
unique opportunity to redefine the quintessence of our primary, secondary
and university education; we have the golden chance in a life-time to
idiosyncratically re-invent a systematic education that is unique to us,
and yet, use it as a force for the much anticipated timely transformation
of every cradle of our social, political and economic existence. Not only
must we re-invent and redefine a new pragmatic philosophy for our
university education, we must do so, and offer it to all Nigerians as a
way of giving each person a chance at life - a chance to progressively and
proudly exist as Nigerians, who are capable of making our livelihood in
our only God-given home land, and at the same time contribute our various
quotas to build a vibrant and competitive Nigeria.
When I refer to a new
pragmatic philosophy of education, I mean we must think of our primary,
secondary and university education as a tool necessary to instill our
citizens with an education that teaches and stresses critical thinking,
which is required to deal with all the issues related to our national
development and peaceful coexistence. Our education must emphasize
novelty, hard work, and creativity and, it must seek to maximize our
children's inherent potentials, which will foster the atmosphere for
progress in our economy, politics and social lives. Beyond the malevolence
created by our colonial masters, that seem to perpetuate our differences,
we are responsible for our dilemma today, and we must mend it by
ourselves. One way to do so, I insist, is, by providing quality 21st
century-type education for our children.
The 21st century-type
education I am referring to is the compelling education that is capable of
informing, changing, reversing, and transforming the lives, worldview and
the destiny of our young people and make them productive citizens of this
great nation of Nigeria. This type of education is an undisputed paramount
gem that is unreservedly indispensable for Nigeria, a nation that
desperately is in dire need of total transformation. To pursue this path
of national transformation, we cannot for example continue to under any
circumstance, allow our educational system to incessantly suffer from
strike actions by the universities' faculty and other staff members. We
cannot at all afford to allow our young men and women to constantly suffer
as the victims of our government/universities staffs' disagreement. The
least we can offer our young men and women is their well-deserved
fundamental right - stable education. We have all it takes to make that
happen. We cannot possess such enormous oil and gas wealth and not be able
to offer quality, stable education to our children; yet, they are suppose
to be the future of our long-lasting existence as a great nation. No
nation can emerge from the shackle of primitive backwardness, poverty and
underdevelopment without a vibrant educated population. Western Europe,
America, Japan, Singapore have all immensely invested in educating their
population, and now South Korea, China, and India are greatly investing in
educating their population and seeing commensurate dividend of an educated
population; why shouldn’t Nigeria emulate this proven path of national
development? Unfortunately, because Nigeria is lagging behind on
education, thousands of Nigerians are spending millions of Naira each year
in pursuit if expensive education in some of these foreign nations.
To consign this piece
into our collective conscience as a nation, I would suggest that among
other intellectual theories of education that we may be operating on, we
must begin to incorporate the teaching of our constitution, creativity,
novelty and hard work into our philosophy of education. We must educate
our children - teenagers, young men and women, about our constitution,
creativity, novelty and hard work and sternly discourage exam malpractice
and all unethical practices within academia. Let every parent and every
teacher begin to teach Nigeria's children about our constitution, and
about creativity, novelty and hard work; let our intellectuals,
politicians and religious leaders set a clear incorruptible example that
progress and prosperity comes only through dedication, commitment and hard
work in our various fields of endeavor. Let our leaders recognize that one
way we can forge forward as a unified, progressive and civilized people in
this 21st century, is by making clear what our constitution is, and
fulfill the promise of it's substance to all the populace of Nigeria.
Thus, this piece is
intended to be a compelling political and social statement on the Nigerian
situation; it is humanitarian plea that I hope every ear would hear. It is
a statement in our national interest that should pierce into our national
consciousness and awaken us from the state of mediocrity, despondency and
slothfulness to a state of excellence and promptness in dealing with our
collapsing educational system. Politicians, religious leaders, privileged
Nigerians, and Nigerians abroad, if we don't act now to redress the
deteriorating state of our education, we may soon awaken to a tragic and
horrendous dishonor known to any nation on earth.
To our local, state and
national government, I bring to you the words of John Locke, a 17th
century enlightenment philosopher, whose ideas incredibly influenced the
ideals of democracy which we claim to have now. In two of his Treatise on
government, he postulates that men in their state of nature were
reasonable, had a moral sense and the rights to life, liberty and
property. He also said that, people must act reasonably and responsibly,
but they can be educated to do so. He added that if government violates
the people's right, they may in the last extremity rebel. I believe
passionately that if there was any time in history where these words by
this wise man, Locke, are ever relevant to the Nigerian situation, this is
the time! These words are self-explanatory for every sensible politician
to heed to, and begin to apply it to the democratic governance of our
nation especially in dealing with our educational predicaments, not to
talk of our social, political and economic troubles.
Furthermore, it is
extremely important that our government should understand that denying our
young men and women the right to stable and quality education does no
good, but it creates tension, psychological frustration and hatred for the
government in the minds of our young people. Unfortunately, tension,
frustration and hatred are the raw material for individuals to begin to
act insanely as criminals and terrorists as we have seen recently in this
nation. Therefore, I make bold to say that our disintegrating social
lives, and the increasing crime waves in our society is clearly the
by-products of these terrible tension, frustration and hatred created by
denying our young men their fundamental human right - quality and stable
education. Thus, one simple way to reduce the rates of crimes and
terrorism in our society, which in turn would create the safe atmosphere
for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth, is to stabilize
our educational system at all levels. Not only that, government must
provide scholarships and educational loans for our university students
since our university students need funds to buy their books, feed
themselves, cloth themselves and transport themselves to school back to
their respective places of residences. This is the least our government
can do for our young people because we have the oil and gas wealth to do
so. Most parents who fall under the category of our 80% poor population
can barely feed themselves and so cannot do it alone as the case has been
for many years. If our local, state and federal government would become
responsible to credibly invest in our young people, much of our social,
economic and political troubles would certainly be solved over time.
Furthermore, if
government can stabilize our educational system and make it what it ought
to be in the 21st Century, Nigerians would not need to go to Europe,
America and Asia in search of expensive education as we do now. Rather, we
may attract other fellow Africans to our educational system, and that is
good for our economy. America, Canada, Australia, Western Europe and other
Asian countries are making huge money from foreign students by having a
stable and developed educational system. Why shouldn’t Nigeria? If we
stabilize our system, then, we would begin to serve as the beacon of light
for the rest of Africa. We can become the "United States of Africa" to the
continent of Africa as the United States of America is to the Continent of
North America and to the rest of the world.
Should I foolishly assume
that it is the sole responsibility of the government to stabilize our
education and encourage our young people to be educated? Would I make
sense if I suggest that our intellectuals and wealthy Nigerians have no
part in this business? Can I religiously suggest that our religious
leaders have no part in this struggle? Absolutely no! Every religious
leader, every Nigerian intellectual and all wealthy Nigerians at home and
abroad have part to play in this issue. The question is how, and what are
we suppose to do? Well, here are some suggestions:
1. Our religious
leaders and their various churches, shrines and mosques must now begin to
help sponsor whatever number of students they could in our Nigerian
Universities. They can do so by taking offerings to set up scholarship
foundations for this reason. Thank God our churches collect tithes and
offerings, and thank God our Muslims brothers and sisters are charitable.
It may not be much but a little here and there can go a long way.
2. Wealthy
Nigerians at home and abroad can look beyond their immediate family
members and assist their neighbors by way of setting up some type of
scholarships to annually assist any given number of students. I am not
really speaking of what I have not done; rather, I am still doing it at
this moment even though I am not wealthy. Living in America where a little
dollar converts into a lot of Naira, I have been able to assist several
undergraduate students in Nigeria universities.
3. To our
intellectuals, especially our universities' officials, we must learn to
compromise and possibly make sacrifices so that our children can be given
the same opportunity you had to be university-educated. It is as simple as
that. The University faculties must learn the need for sacrifice for
nation building as they have an indispensable role to play to move our
educational system beyond the menace of seasonal strikes, which is
extremely disruptive to our educational stability.
In conclusion, I don't
claim that my suggestions are easy or that they may not require time to
execute. However, if we do, that would mark the beginning of a new dawn
for our educational, economic, social and political lives. I hope this
article make sense to someone, who would dare to make a difference in the
lives of other fellow Nigerians.
Excerpt from the article by Emakoji Ayikoye http://www.gamji.com/article9000/NEWS9522.htm
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