Towards developing Nigeria’s education sector

There is a great problem in the nation’s education sector. At the moment, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are on strike and every effort to resolve the crisis has met a brickwall.  For over two months now, our children have remained at home, doing nothing. Despite all the pleadings parents and those who are concerned with the way things are going in this sector have made, it seems none of the two parties is ready to shift its ground. While many have been calling on ASUU to call off the strike to enable the students return to their classrooms, members of the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU)  are already threatening to go on to press home their demands from government. As a result, Nigerians should not be too joyful immediately ASUU calls off the strike. The essence of this letter, however, is to lament the state of education in this country. As an employer of labour, I know the challenges I am facing to get quality hands on my team. I could interview over a thousand university graduates for a position and would be surprised that many don’t even know what they are supposed to know at their level. Other employers of labour will tell you the same thing about Nigerian graduates and we don’t need to be deceiving ourselves that everything is well. We all need to play our part. The government needs to play its part; ASUU needs to play its part, even the students should also play their part. The government should give enough funding to education. Required facilities should be provided where necessary. On the part of the lecturers, they should be reasonable in their demands. If they are, then the ongoing strike should not have lasted this long. They (the lecturers) should also give more to their students. Most lecturers today teach in about four or five universities, and you can imagine what such lecturer will be teaching after being exhausted. The lecturer will just be giving the hapless students, who don’t know they need to study far and beyond what their lecturers teach them, different assignments. On the part of the students, they should know that their lecturers’ work is just to teach them, but it is their responsibility to develop themselves. No one can be lifted except one raises the arms. Nigerian students have a lot to do to develop themselves. They should know their areas of weaknesses and work more on such areas. However, the major responsibility lies with government. Education should be given priority because of its role in reducing poverty. If the foot-soldiers of Boko Haram had been properly educated, they would have known what is right and what is wrong. No one would have been able to manipulate them with religion. Have we ever wondered why the rich and political office holders send their children to the best schools outside the country? This is because they also know the value of qualitative education. Why can’t government then give the lion share of the budget to education every year? Source: Education News