The return of civil rule to Nigeria in 1999 gave Nigerians enormous joy and solace. Nigerians citizens thought since the governance order of their country had been successfully withdrawn from the iron fist of military men and the critical sectors of the country rescued from military impunity, they were about to witness a turnaround in the operations of their public lives.
One of such critical sectors hoped to be revamped was education. It was immensely hoped that all the different layers or substructures of the education system would be given adequate attention and investment, thereby ultimately empowering the population and decimating literacy challenges in the country.
More than twenty years after, little or no improvement has been seen in this sector, which forms the backbone of the nation’s development. Education, beyond teaching and learn alone, is, to a large extent, responsible for industrial growth, digital revolution and societal stability. Given its importance, model countries do not play with any issue affecting their educational industries.
This worrisome condition has been demonstrated by the almost automatic industrial actions by the respective staff unions in our schools year-in-year-out and the government’s inadequate attention at funding the system. Although different stakeholders within and outside the system have not ceased calling for an improved situation, the government seems unyielding, claiming there’s no enough funds. Yet, new tertiary institutions keep springing up in a showy manner by the government just to give a “sense of achievement”.
As a concerned citizen of this country, I consider it worthy to donate some ideas towards resolving the claim of insolvency put forward by the government over the years. Since the traditional source of funding for our schools, which is the government subventions, has proved unrealistic for this age, we must challenge ourselves to think wide and co-opt new ideas to salvage the situation.
While the government continues it responsibility of regulating the schools, it should also sit down with the management of the schools for a frank talk on how best to overcome funding issues. It is my view that opportunities abound within the schools to enable them generate money for their administrative expenses.
One of such strategies available to the schools is to increase schools fees across levels. It is not controvertible that the enrollment level of students in Nigerian institutions is high as more than one million candidates apply for admissions each year through Joint Admission Matriculation Board.
Evidence shows that most of the tertiary schools charge below Fifty Thousand Naira Only (₦50,000) from their students per year. While the prices of other services increase daily and given the fact that some of the facilities for conducting teaching, learning and research are manufactures of other foreign countries, Nigeria institutions can not continue to collect fees below what the government is capable of subsidizing.
Some may argue that increasing school fees will shut many poor students out of schools. However, the school could understudy successful models of undergraduate study loans from other foreign countries and activate mechanisms of scaling it to our institutions.
Ensuring the success of this strategy will require some fundamental actions. Thus, the government and the schools must identify all the leakages in the system and block them to prevent sharp dealings.
At the same time, the government should review upward its grants or subventions being given to the schools in agreement with the changing economic realities. It is should even be a periodic appraisal by the government in order to keep the system healthy and compete shoulder-to-shoulder with best institutions in the world.
The crisis of frittering away the precious time of Nigerian students in the name of industrial strike almost on a yearly basis is terrible incidence constituting a serious blockage to the country’s human development progress. It is even hard to explain that a country like Nigeria spending billions of naira on elections and watching her treasury keepers loot trillions of naira is shutting her young population out of school.
It strongly believed that this strategy will be effectual. To test its public acceptance, an opinion poll may be carried out by Nigerian Universities Commission or any interested entity to x-ray the people’s opinion.
Let’s rescue the future of our dear nation!
Kabiru Adeniyi Adisa, FCA, President-General of the Charitable Youth for Nation Building Initiative, writes from Ibadan.
charitableyouthfor@gmail.com
