TUE, APRIL 17 2018-theG&BJournal-Quality education has its greatest testimony as being the means of developing human intelligence and skills needed to produce wealth and sustain a suitable and democratic society. Education is very vital especially in sharpening the mind and increasing the knowledge of an individual thereby facilitating positive impacts in the society.
The current state of education in Nigeria has remained a matter of concern as it has consistently ranked low in world rankings and is continuously plagued by inadequate funding and corruption. The challenges in the nation’s education sector is mostly experienced in the two most important phases of education; primary and secondary schools where pupils are at their formative stages and require the best foundation of education. The sector has also been affected by the frequent political unrest which has generated negative effects on the education system. For example, the Borno State Government recently closed female boarding schools in 25 out of its 27 Local Government Areas (LGA) of the state to forestall abduction of school girls by the Boko Haram insurgents.
The West African Examination Council (WAEC) recently announced the results of the first series of the new diet of its January/ February series of the 2018 West African Senior School Certificate Examination for Private Candidates in Nigeria and it revealed that 83 percent of the candidates who wrote the examination failed. This failure, which could directly be attributed to the decline in the quality of education in Nigeria, corroborates findings from a past poll on education which was conducted by NOIPolls in 2016.
The poll revealed that 60 percent of Nigerians blamed the country’s poor education system as the main reason for the increasing desire to obtain foreign degrees by Nigerian students, in spite the huge cost of schooling abroad, with reasons ranging from a higher standard of education, to job opportunities, and a higher standard of living. Despite constant agitations by citizens for a considerable improvement in Nigeria’s education sector, providing quality education has continued to be a problem in the country. This creates huge impact on employability thereby increasing the rate of unemployment in Nigeria.
Furthermore, according to global standards, factors that hinder the achievement of quality education in Nigeria have been identified by stakeholders in the education sector as poor funding of the sector by the government, poorly planned and obsolete curricula and poor remunerations of teachers. These and other factors have been militating against the provision of standard education in Nigeria. In assessing academic performance, job excellence and societal contributions of Nigerians who studied abroad, the poll showed that respondents believed that Nigerians who studied abroad are better off in these three attributes than their local counterparts as shown in the figure below.
In conclusion, investment in education needs to become much more efficient, requiring the government to prioritize the education sector since it is considered as key to economic prosperity and has been highlighted as the best possible way for combating global poverty, diseases and ensuring sustainable development. Therefore, the government should collaborate with some international partners to achieve major educational transformations in the Nigerian education system. The involvement of major stakeholders in the Nigerian education sector, with a good compliment by international agencies, NGOs, foundations, will be essential if the goals and potential of quality education are to be realized in Nigeria.
