Finding A Solution For Nigeria’s Educational Impasse

How pertinent is the role of education to national development and economic prosperity?

Recently, Mexican lawmakers approved a major overhaul of the country’s public education system, giving the country’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto a crucial victory in his drive to fix some of the nation’s dysfunctional institutions.

The senators voted 102 to 22 for a package of measures that will establish a standardised testing system for evaluating teacher performance and hiring faculty, ending the corrupt practices that allowed union bosses to buy and sell classroom jobs and paid their pockets at the expense of students. The Senate vote followed approval of the measures by the lower house of Mexico’s congress by a similar broad margin, 390 to 69. Mexico’s Education Secretary, Emilo Chuayffet even tweeted: “Merit is the ideal means of access to, and progress in, a teaching career”.

Angel Diaz Barriga, an education expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, said the fundamental achievements of the overhaul will be to reestablish the government’s control over public education, decades after the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party handed it over to union bosses in exchange for political patronage.

In Nigeria, there have been repeated calls for a overhaul in the education system (tertiary institutions particlularly), championed by the citizens and other stakeholders like Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which has perenially used strike actions to drive home its points. Presently, the ASUU is at it again. And although the over three months Nigerian strike obviously has a different purpose from the Mexican legislation, one can argue that both were undertaken to enhance the efficiency of their individual education system: the Mexican legislation bothers more on the state determining the hiring, competency and professional promotion of teachers while the ASUU strike focus on provision of infrastructure facilities and resources to enhance the efficiency of the Nigerian university education system.

It is no news that Nigeria has a vision to become one of the top twenty economies in the globe by the year 2020 (“Vision 20:2020″). However, the vision, though laudable, comes at a high price. This vision demands deliberate strategies and commitment to give it all that is required to making it a reality.

There are constituents to this vision which include infrastructural development, attraction of local and foreign investors, making and reviewing laws and policies to facilitate the process among other things. But the most important driver of a vision for economic growth is education. Education is as vital as electricity. More so, what is the use of electricity and roads without efficient manpower to maximise them for national prosperity.

The over a hundred days old ASUU strike was fueled by the government default. The failure to keep to the terms of agreement with ASUU effectively triggered the strike action. There have been several opinions about the strike, but it should be seen more in the light of fight for qualitative standard in the university system. Many graduates from the public universities have stories about the quality of education they had and the employers of labour can say more about that. Thus, the obvious question is that if Nigeria envisions to become amongst the 20 leading economies in the world, can it achieve this without a formidable and competitive manpower? We have since been living in a global village which has strengthened competition across board. The global ranking of universities does not featured any Nigerian university in the first 500 while the African ranking has no Nigerian university in the first 40. Dans mon avis, this should call for a state of emergency in view of the nation’s economic vision.

The economic prosperity of nations lie in creativity and inventions which drive productivity and value worthy of intellectual property protection. The wealth of nations can be easily assessed by quality and quantity of intellectual property rights. For Nigeria to be part of the cream of leading economies in the world, it must be ready to increase the level of creativity and volume of inventions on a global scale. However, this is driven by the quality of manpower which is a direct product of the education sector.

However, as the Senate president of Nigeria, David Mark recently mentioned, a legislative solution should be sought to reach a lasting solution. Such legislation should be holistic, addressing beyond the ASUU cause to quality and competence of the manpower of the country’s education system. This will, in turn, facilitate a system ready to breed innovators, inventors and leaders into the future of all sectors so that the country can take its place in the competitive global economy.

Finance should not be mentioned as a barrier from the government. More so, Nigeria holds the Presidency of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for development. By this, Nigeria is the focal point for promoting innovative financing mechanisms as an imperative in the emerging financial support paradigm, especially as creative measures are now required to meet the widening development funding gap. If Nigeria can play this role at the global level, strategising for innovative funding for the university system should be easy.

I like to conclude with the instructive statement of 16-year old Pakistani youth leader, Malala Yousafzai, who against surviving assassination attempt by the Taliban has remained forceful in advocating for girl’s education. According to her, “issues and problems are enormous. But the solution is one. And that is education”. Thus, the solution to Nigeria’s economic prosperity is the education sector. A legislative solution will work, but better with prioritisation and dedication to the overhaul.