As Nigeria marked the 62nd anniversary of its independence on October 1, CLEMENT IDOKO examines the state of the education sector in the country, concluding that there is need for more investment in the sector in order to propel the development of the nation.
The celebration of the 62nd Independence anniversary of Nigeria marked with colourful parade by the nation’s military and paramilitary agencies at the popular Eagle’s Square, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on October 1, 2022, may have come and gone, but the crisis that had enveloped the all-important education sector over time remains, with the associated pains.
The stakeholders, including educationists, activists and public officials while appraising the performance in the sector since independence, agreed that the persistent strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have remained the major sore point in the development of education sector in Nigeria.
While some commended government for making appreciable progress in providing school infrastructure, capacity building and manpower development in the past 62 years, some others criticised the Nigerian government for not doing much to address the challenges in the education sector, especially the inability to resolve the lingering strikes by ASUU. Students in public universities have been at home for about eight months as a result of the ongoing strike action by the Academic Satff Union of Universities.
The crisis in the education sector is not limited to ASUU strike. Nigeria is said to have one of the highest number of out-of-school children in the world estimated at 10.5 million according to report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). There is also the issue of learning crisis in which the UNICEF revealed that about 73 percent of children who are out-of-school are not really learning how to read and write. This is in addition to illiterate burden of over 43 percent of the Nation’s population.
Worst still, the crisis in the education sector is further being exacerbated by the insecurity resulting in attacks on schools and abduction of students and teachers by terrorists for ransom.
At the root of all the crises is poor funding across the basic and tertiary levels of education. President Muhammadu Buhari, acknowledged this during his 62nd independence anniversary address to the nation, when he noted that the Federal Government would continue to mobilise resources both internationally and nationally towards funding education.
ASUU strikes debacle
In 2009, ASUU embarked on an industrial action that lasted for four months. As part of efforts to end the strike, the then government of the late President Umaru Musa Yaradu’a signed an agreement with ASUU, simply referred to as FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement. Some of the key demands include revitalisation fund for universities, university autonomy, earned academic allowance and other welfare issues. The failure of the government to implement the 2009 agreement subsequently became the basis for subsequent strikes over the following years.
ASUU initially embarked on a two-week warning strike in March 2020, over the failure of the Federal Government to implement its 2019 agreement and resolution with the union. The strike, which lasted for over 9 months, became noted as one of the longest strikes ever in Nigeria. It was declared while COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the world. ASUU eventually called off the strik in December 2020,
The current indefinite industrisl action by ASUU, which is in its eight month actually commenced on February 14, 2022. As of today, Thursday 6th October, the strike has lasted for 235 days and still counting. On September 23, 2022, ASUU filed 14 grounds for appeal against the ruling of Justice Polycarp of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, which ordered that the striking lecturers should resume work pending the determination of a suit by the Federal Government to query the legality of the strike.
Loss of two years academic calendars
The implication from the above is that one full academic session is almost lost in the ongoing ASUU strike. This was the same experience in 2020 when a full academic session was lost to ASUU strike. This means that during the adminstration of President Muhammadu Buhari alone, Nigerian students in public the universities have lost more than two academic sessions to ASUU strike.
It is also important to point out that as a result of the combined effect of industrial actions and the Coronavirus-induced break, most public tertiary institutions have backlogs of candidates yet to be officially admitted with the results of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted in 2021. Thus, the results of the 2022 UTME conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) have constituted another backlog for many of these institutions.
Parents and other critical stakeholders have expressed concerns about the development, but JAMB said the ASUU strike would not stop it from conducting its examination. Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, particularly explained that the examination is not conducted for only public universities in Nigeria, but also for colleges of education, polytechnics and private universities.
He said that there are also some public universities that do not join the ASUU strike.
A parent, Malam Ibrahim Abubakar, while expressing his disgust over the ASUU strike, said that his son is still awaiting admissions having scored 280 in 2021 UTME.
He lamented that his younger daughter also sat for the 2022 UTME examination, saying that the strikes had slowed down the entire process and left them stranded.
Analysts have also pointed out that there is no way students who are affected by the strike actions could recover the lost two years, noting that most of them would have to spend additional two years into their programmes depending on their levels.
“As it is now, graduates from public universities have not been mobilised for the compulsory one-year national youth service the executive director, Education Rights Initiative (ERI), Dr Joseph Udah, had said.
Attacks on educational institutions
The first known attack on the learning institution in Nigeria occured on April 14, 2014, where a total of 276 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in North-East Nigeria, were abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, noted that since the Chibok school invasion, attacks on schools and abductions of students – sometimes resulting in their deaths – have become recurrent in the last two years, especially in the north-west and north-central regions of Nigeria.
He added that a total of 11,536 schools had been shut down since December 2020 due to abductions and security issues, adding that the school closures have impacted the education of approximately 1.3 million children in the 2020/21 academic year. .
Speaking in the same vein, the registrar/chief executive of the Teachers’ Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Professor Josiah Ajiboye, disclosed that attacks on schools by insurgents had claimed the lives of more than 2,295 teachers in the North-East between 2009 and 2022, adding that a total of 19,000 others had been displaced with over 910 schools damaged or destroyed due to the conflict.
He further stated that over 1,500 schools were forced to shut down due to insurgency and more than 600,000 children had lost access to education.
Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on his part noted that the incessant attacks on the country’s education system meted out in forms of kidnapping, abduction of pupils/students, banditry, increased activities of insurgents and general insecurity in our schools had exacerbated the many factors responsible for the growing number of out-of-school children.
FG’s interventions
On tertiary education, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has disclosed that President Buhari administration has invested in infrastructure development of the education sector more than any other administration in the history of the nation.
He noted that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) had invested an estimated N2.5 trillion in tertiary education in the last 10 years, thereby exceeding the sum total of N1.2 trillion as contained in the 2009 agreement with ASUU and still counting.
At the basic and secondary education levels, Adamu said the Federal Government had invested heavily in the construction, renovation and rehabilitation of classrooms, hostels, laboratories, security and other infrastructural facilities.
“In the last seven years, a total of N553 billion had gone into infrastructure development at the basic and secondary levels,” he said.
The executive director, Education Rights Initiative (ERI), Dr Joseph Udah, has called on the Federal Government and other stakeholders to invest more in the education sector, if the country would attain any meaningful development.
Also, the dean, Faculty of Education, University of Uyo, Professor Ntiaobong Ekong, expressed displeasure over the poor state of education from the primary to tertiary levels, especially in the public schools.
He equally maintained that there was no country that developed without a sound foundation for the education of its citizens, describing it as the main instrument for national development.
Ekong said: ‘’At 62, I want to specifically say that the education system in Nigeria is not as mature as the country at 62.
‘’ASUU strike is getting to the eighth month now and there’s no concrete solution or positive focus on ways to resolve the issue.’’
He decried the degree of brain drain in the education sector due to neglect, urging the government to prioritise the sector in order to enhance the nation’s development.
and then