Towards a functional education curriculum

Education is crucial in any society for the preservation of lives of its members and the maintenance of social structure. In the history of our pre-colonial existence, we are told from folk tales that our ancient people had unique ways of documenting events, such that they could go to the wall were they inscribed some marks and tell their children or relations what exactly transpired on that day. They equally developed a system of oral communication, traditional norms and values which they passed on to their children and generations. Nigeria was a colony of British imperialist until flag independence was granted on October Ist, 1960 and the conferment of a status of a Republic in 1963. Notwithstanding the divergent views held by scholars of History, it can be rightly argued that the contribution of Britain in the civilization process of Nigeria is an indelible milestone that propelled Nigeria's march from a primordial and classically primitive antecedent into continental and global political relevance.

There is no doubt that Nigeria as a nation had witnessed a series of Educational Systems since its birth in 1914. Immediately after independence in Nigeria, there were a lot of ills and shortcomings in Nigerian educational system as it was based on the British educational system which did not pave way for yearning needs, interests and aspirations of Nigerian society. Upon the attainment of independence in 1960, there was the call for outright rejection of the education legacy of the former British overlords. According to Babatunde Fafunwa, the educational system should meet the yearnings and aspirations of the nation. Towards accomplishing just that, there was the need to re-appraise its goals, objectives and content. This was the reason for holding the National Conference on Curriculum Development at Lagos in September 1969. The central message of the conference was the promotion of national consciousness and self-reliance via educational training. About 8 years after the conference, precisely 1977, a National Policy on Education was produced. The document had been revised in 1981, 1989 and 2004. Altogether, the 61-page policy document has thirteen sections.

Paradoxically, in spite of her enormous natural and human resources, Nigeria's education system is bedevilled with myriad of problems. However, with this retinue of problems that plague our educational system, successive administrations have paid lip service to the issue of a functional school curriculum. Comparatively speaking, Nigeria's education system is rather quantitative than qualitative-oriented. A lot of people have alleged that military incursion into politics is substantially responsible for the devastating deterioration in the objectives and goals of our school system. A sad incidence of history was the forceful takeover of private and missionary schools which were pacesetters in boarding and efficient classroom administration. This is why the plans by some Governors to return schools to their original private and proprietors have been accorded with thunderous applauses.

I remembered that I was once playing with one of my nephews and I asked him to sing nursery rhyme for me. I was disappointed when the young boy started singing “London Bridge is falling down; London Bridge is falling down …etc”. I asked him what lessons can be deduced from the nursery rhyme and to my utter amazement he told me the lessons therein and even volunteered to tell me the origin of the song. I was really held spellbound by the level of intelligent quotient of my six-year old nephew. However I was disappointed when I asked him to tell me what he knows about Chibok. He said what is Chy-boz (as pronounced by him)? I further asked him if he has ever heard of Biafra and he said no. This is a sad reality of happenings in our education system. These are the supposedly leaders of tomorrow that are expected to come and resolve the problems in Nigeria. How can one solve a problem he does know its history? I asked myself if one can give what he does not have. Physical and Health Education teacher spends considerable time telling students about how Diego Maradona once ruled the world and nobody ever discusses how our own Sam Okwaraji (PhD) died while playing on the field. Our Religious teachers spend hours telling their students how Jesus Christ came to die for the sins of the world and nobody discusses how our own Moremi saved the people of Ile-Ife from insurgents. Our Fine Arts teachers spend hours telling students about how Monalisa was once the most beautiful damsel in the world and nobody ever find it deem fit to talk about Queen Amina. History teachers spend hours telling us about how Adolf Hitler held the whole world to ransom and nobody ever find it deem fit to talk about how our own Efunsetan Aniwura gave the Olubadan a run for his monies.

Often times, I look at the historical materials that are uploaded online and I cried when I see the ways Nigeria histories are being distorted. I remembered that my Yoruba teacher in secondary school taught me that Ogun is the god of iron; Sango is the god of thunder; Orunmila is the god of Ifa. I was having this mindset about these teachings until I entered the University and my Professor of African Philosophy told me that Ogun was never the god of iron or Sango the god of thunder; ditto for other purportedly claims about Africans gods. She said Ogun was an inventor who discovered irons, Sango was an inventor who discovered fire and Orunmila discovered mathematics. These were people that were turned to demi-gods because of the innovations they brought to human beings. It is time that we have Nigeria histories written by Nigerians. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti said, he was told Mungo Park discovered Rivers Niger as if it was not people that were staying around River Niger before the expedition of Mungo Park.

The question has become, what is wrong with the Nigeria educational system? It is no gainsaying that due to laudable programmes put in place by various governments in Nigeria in improving the quality of Education in Nigerian society, much has not been achieved in really carving out policies that will suit the entire society. The utmost importance attached to education in Nigeria was clearly underscored in the National Policy on Education. But despite the government's commitment to education, the quality of education in our schools has been declining tremendously, thereby giving successive government's serious concern. Before independence, the system was administered by different sets of managers including the Christian missionaries, the colonial government and the regional governments. Since independence in 1960, the federal, state and local governments have played significant roles in the administration of education in the country. Lack of a functional educational policy caused by poor administration has been the bane of the education system since inception. Poor administration is displayed in different ugly forms including poor timing of policy inauguration and programme implementation. Statistical constraint, financial constraint and political constraint have contributed to the problem of poor management. For the system to survive, there is the need on the part of the nation to ensure political stability. It is only, when the polity is stable and all the tiers of government display the necessary political will that we can have a working education system. The system will thus be invigorated and made fully prepared for the challenges in the future.

The results of this lack of functional educational policy are not far-fetched. We witness everyday as young girls and boys are being used as terrorists. I don't see any student that is well grounded in formal education becoming a militant. An idle hand is the devil workshop. Schools are teaching our students half truth. There is a vacuum in our education system and this vacuum has been capitalized on by insurgents. The moral upbringings that should accompany our scientific, technological and artistic achievements have been relegated completely to the background. Scientific and technological achievements are growing at a geometric progression while moral teachings are growing at arithmetic progression.

I have argued at different occasions that government should stop fighting insurgents with physical weapons. Take it or leave it, the war against insurgents is war against an ideology that has been taught our brothers and sisters in the north as the acceptable way of life. The Boko Haram insurgents are educated in the real sense of it but they are educated to hate books. Funny enough, they are not sufficiently educated about even their religion, to know that some of the greatest philosophers came from that religion. Some of the greatest mathematicians were, the pioneers, Muslims; Islamic scholars. These insurgents have been taught on monorail and this is just one-track mind. So they need to be educated about their own history and their own culture. Inasmuch as I approved of the attempt to create the so called 'Almajiri Schools', I think it is of paramount importance that the content and the method of teaching is supervised and control. You don't fight an ideology with guns. One needs superior ideology to fight an evil ideology. Succinctly put, ideologies are patterned clusters of normatively imbued ideas and concepts, including particular representations of power relations. These conceptual maps help people navigate the complexity of their political universe and carry claims to social truth. Ideology, especially the one that has grown into dogmas, always paves the way towards atrocity. We should however take cognizance of the fact that it is a huge mistake to become married to an ideology, especially when the ideology is not one that has been really thought through. Ideology is a man-made format of how the world ought to work. However, literacy and ideology are inseparable. Literacy helps to thwart intolerance, challenge dogma, and reinforce our common humanity while ideology does the opposite.

Ministry of Education is too sensitive a ministry to be manned by mediocre because mediocrity today lead to greater mediocrity tomorrow. How can ministry of education be manned by someone who managed to graduate from the university with a pass? You can definitely not give what you don't have. I have been opportune to work with some Professors and I kept wondering why these eggheads are not in the saddle of ministry of education. It is only in Nigeria that one will see a sitting Commissioner of Education fighting in his own political ward for who becomes the next political appointee. Haba! Most Commissioners of Education would rather prefer attending coronation of their state party chairman than attending the graduation ceremony of secondary schools students in their respective states. Funny enough, these set of commissioners would be the first to say that Nigeria graduates are not employable. I am suggesting that we close down all educational institutions in the country for a while and go back to Zero and restart or re-plan our entire educational system and retune our minds to what educational system is supposed to be about.

It is high time we revisited the Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) programme of some private companies. These days one see companies spending billions on CSR project that camp youths for 30days in a supposedly reality show programme and asking participants to be bathing nude, kissing and engaging in all sorts of immoral activities; and this same company will spend 200,000 naira for spelling bee competition or Debate competition. I have questioned the rationale behind some music reality show program. Must every Nigerian youth become Michael Jackson, Diana Ross or Uti Nwachukwu of Big Brother Africa? Is it a sin for Nigeria to produce the next generation of Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, and Desmond Tutu? So what our leaders are telling us is that the next generation of Nigerian youth they want is musician that can do moon walking? I am still thinking aloud! Even some state governments have started following the same line of action. Some state government don't mind spending billions on carnivals, beach party while their educational system is in shambles. How can we be leaders of tomorrow when the necessary empowerments we need to accomplish that are readily not at our disposal? The supposedly leaders of tomorrow cannot write or speak simple and correct English grammars, cannot run a good business, are not politically conscious, etc and none of our political leaders seem to be bothered about this trend? I hope to see government coming with a law that every CSR project must at least promote educating Nigerian youth positively. Something likes CSR Education Content Law. A committee manned by educationists/technocrats can be set up to ensure implementation of this law. We should however note that the capacity of any nation to compete favourably with the most advanced economies of the world depends on the ability to meet the fast growing demands for high level skills. An educated citizenry and a competent workforce are necessary in order to strengthening our young democracy and also our ability to compete in a global economy.

Revamping of the goals of technical education in contemporary Nigeria, the state of our technical education is sad commentary. I recall with nostalgia the good old days when technical schools symbolized future technocrats and technologists. As a matter of fact, Introductory Technology was introduced into the post primary school system in my time, and the objective was to boost our consciousness of industrial and mechanical elements as critical agents of industrialization of Nigeria. Somewhere, somehow, the story turned bizarre and we are so industrially backward as a nation that we import tooth-pick, comb, needle and threads from the Asian countries that used to be far behind our Country in terms of National development index. What an absurdity! These things could have been products from our Technical schools supposed they were up in standards and shapes. Towards this end, I submit that we must encourage technically endowed citizens to take admission in technical schools, even if we have to resort to scholarships and other incentives, the long term objective of which is to blossom our country into greatness.

Conclusively, there should be concerted efforts towards a holistic review of our National Education policy. This factor is very germane in the sense that relevant stakeholders will parley to redesign our policy in such a way that each states or Local Governments will have their cherished values embellished into the school curriculum. For instance, each state indigenous language and cultural values will be given special attention in the new curriculum to be designed; however, this should not be sacrificed for national goals. God Bless Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Femi Oni is a PhD student of University of Lagos. He can be reached on 08065848504 or [email protected]

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