Checklist for tackling the rot in education by Matilda Orhewere

Need you guys to read this:
The call for review of
the education sector is
long overdue. Politicians
are not giving schools
administration room
and reason to function
normally; teachers are
ill-equipped and mostly
ill-motivated and the
students just pass
time within the school
system without having
a clear focus of the
much desired need to
broaden their mind by
the experience of
education. Where are
our values?
The just concluded
UTME for 2012 again
revealed that the
quality of students
passing through schools
in Nigeria is not
presentable in any
education system other
than in Nigeria. As many
as 27,000+ candidates
had their results
withheld for various
reasons; and failure
was on a mass scale
with only three
candidates scoring
beyond 300 marks and
others barely scaling
the 200 minimum score.
The results are the
evidence of decay in the
system.
The Federal Ministry of
Education claims to be
working ceaselessly to
unearth the various
problems of the
Nigerian education
system; and only
recently created a
committee to look into
the education sector to
see how progress can
be made especially
among the universities.
Nigerian universities
have been besieged
with too many
problems and some of
them have been
identified to include the
following:
Inadequate funding
from the government.
Erosion of values by a
valueless political
system resulting in a
breach of protocol, the
weakened internal
policies in the area of
union presence and
activities, as well
compromised
administrative
procedures.
Government’s poor
planning and
implementation culture
as major impediments
to the achievement of
university missions i.e.
teaching and learning,
research and
consultancies.
Planning and
implementation issues.
Party politics –many
lectures and professors
shuttle between
government positions
and the university
employment; bringing
party politicking skills
into the administration
of the universities
which students,
parents and their
sponsors at the
receiving end of the
detrimental effects
that follow.
Business interest of
lecturers in that they
are more focused on
making money outside
the classroom than
writing papers or
carrying out research in
their field of study.
School fees, levies and
other costs are never
reviewed downwards;
this makes one wonder
why it is so difficult to
equip schools enough to
ensure a safe and
habitable environment
to promote academic
excellence.
Until the above
mentioned areas are
tackled, a complete
review of the system
will not be achieved.
The time to start is
now.