THE NEED FOR A REAPPRAISAL OF OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The continuous reduction in the JAMB cut-off mark for tertiary institutions is really a cause for concern. Is it that the JAMB questions are becoming tougher, or that the students are becoming less brilliant?

A cut-off mark of 140 for Universities and 100 for Polytechnics and Colleges of education translates to scores of 35/100 and 25/100 respectively which in the University grading system is a carryover. And I can really say that there is a serious decline in the standard of education in Nigeria.

In the years past, people got jobs with primary school leaving certificates. These days, some University graduates still don’t know the use of ‘Am and I am’, ‘their and there’, ‘were and where’, etc. So the question is, where exactly are we heading?

CHALLENGES 

The causes of this decline in our educational system are multifactorial, one of which is the government’s nonchalant attitude to education. In the years past, teachers were well taken care of and teachers prided in their jobs and they taught with honour and dignity. These days, primary school teachers are paid about #33,000 monthly in an economy where such an amount barely survives someone for a week.

How do you expect those teachers to devote their time and spirit to the job? They will have no option but to be combining the teaching job with other things. Some teachers don’t even teach on market days because they have to go and trade their goods to get their daily bread. Some secondary school teachers too earn less than 20k a month, especially private schools. University lecturers are not even better. The ASUU-FG unending battle is not new to us.

Students on the other hand are not even helping matters. The advent of Android phones, the Internet, and social media is another big distraction. These are supposed to impact the students positively through Google, Chatgpt, etc. where they can learn anything at any time in the comfort of their rooms. However, instead of using them to their advantage, many of them spend more time on WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, etc.

SOLUTION 

There is an urgent need for a total rehabilitation of our educational system. Government should make efforts to rebuild our schools, fund them adequately, better remuneration for teachers, and close monitoring to ensure that the curriculum is being covered as and when due.

There is also the need for value reorientation for the students. To impress in them the need for hard work and focus in their education. Parents should also monitor their children to ensure that social media and mobile phones are not more of a distraction to them.

There should also be a reward system to encourage the students and make education interesting. The world currently has a lot of reasons to make students lose focus, especially with the recent trends of cyber crimes and reality shows where one will practice indecency and go home with millions of naira whereas first-class graduates don’t even get rewarded with 10k.

So, there should be a robust reward system to make education attractive for the younger ones. Private companies, philanthropists and individuals should also please help to encourage and reward hard work and academic excellence in our children.

Finally, I will conclude by saying that we cannot continue to lower the standard, rather we should all join hands to rebuild the system. Education is the foundation of any progressive society and if we allow it to collapse, the society will be in trouble.

Together we can!

Dr. Ali Dickson  

Enugu, Nigeria.