Can Tinubu provide the type of education Nigerians need?

Education continues to drive growth and development of every nation, including Nigeria. The educational system in Nigeria is plagued with a wide range of issues, which have led to the sector’s near collapse in recent years. 

These problems range from the high number of out-of-school children, poor education model, lack of manpower, poor funding, decrepit infrastructure in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, the girl-child education inequality and the incessant strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), among others. 

However, the key question is, can the incoming President, Mr Bola Tinubu, resolve these age-long issues that have set the education sector backwards and give the people the type of education they need?

Education model question

The major question is whether Nigeria will continue with the current education system that promotes theory over practice or make a dramatic -U-turn. Nigeria’s education system currently neglects Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) but pays more attention to management, law and arts courses in tertiary institutions.

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While the latter are critical for development, the former are equally as important. Major research reports, however, have found that any country willing to industrialise must empower its citizens with STEM skills.

Brookings, a Wshinton-based reserach institution, said STEM-focused metropolitan economies performed better in terms of economic indices and innovation. Another report said that more than 50 percent of jobs in the world would be STEM-based by 2030. A research report by Matthew Svodziwa of the University of South Africa found that STEM education offered any nation competent graduates capable of driving industrialisation that would create jobs and modernisation.

Another critical issue is whether skills acqusition should be immersed in the higher institutions of learning or not. Should courses like bakery, bead-making, small manufacturing, SMEs management , start-up building, among others, be offered as courses at universities, polytechnics, monothechnics and even colleges of education?

For a nation with an unemployment rate of 33.3 percent, this may be a critical question.

Emerging markets analyst, Mr Ike Ibeabuchi, explained that other developing nations were changing their education systems to reflect changing realities, but Nigeria was not doing anything despite acknowledging that its education system wasn’t working.

“You can’t be thinking of industialisation when your population has low-grade skills. Right now, we need to have a rethink and focus more on innnovative courses such as STEM, economics, innovation, startups and IT. Other courses are important but the times have come to embrace courses that can help the nation to grow,” he said.

Industrialists have severally complained that the skills they need are sometimes imported due to an absence of them locally. Ibeabuchi said the shortage of shills was a clarion call to change the current system to something else that would work.

Number of out of school children in Nigeria

With around 20 million children not in school, Nigeria has the third-highest population of out-of-school children. According to a survey by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this translates to six out of every 10 Nigerian children not attending school. 

Funding is one of the most significant issues facing the Nigerian education system. According to UNESCO, some initiatives to increase the proportion of children enrolled in school in Nigeria, which were required to yield the intended outcomes, did not yield those results. 

The National Homegrown School Feeding Program illustrates one of these initiatives. Its goal is to feed students while they are in class to enhance their attendance. However, this may not be said to have been successful.

Incessant ASUU strike

From 1999 to 2022, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) went on 16 strikes. The union typically starts a strike in response to demands made by the government or in retribution for the Federal Government’s disdain for agreements that were struck. 

Experts say the president-elect should look for a long-term solution to the strikes as they frequently cause interruptions in the academic calendars, reducing educational attainment and increasing class repetition. 

Researchers and experts have found that poor leadership and low educational standards are among the variables contributing to cybercrime and other criminal conducts in the country.

During the last ASUU strike, there were reported cases of prostitution and crimimality perpetrated by students who were at home.

An educationist, Mrs Agnes Olanrewaju, told Dataphyte that poor remuneration to staff in the education sector, lack of infrastructure, politicisation of the sector, corruption as well as lack of transparency and accountability were hurting Nigeria’s education sector, leading to incessant strikes and poor outcomes among the country’s graduates.

She urged the incoming president to declare a state of emergency in these areas to save the future of the young people and boost the quality of education outcomes. 

Nigeria’s low education spending

Funding is another issue facing the Nigerian educational system. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) recommends that developing nations devote up to 15 percent to 20 percent of their annual expenditures to public education. The funding for Nigeria’s education system needs to meet UNESCO requirements.

The education sector in Nigeria got as little as 13 percent of the entire budget during the country’s military rule, and no democratic government has been able to match that amount. The 2015 saw the highest allocation of 10.8 percent in eight years during the Buhari administration.

The allocation to the education sector as a share of the total budget is below the UNESCO standard and has declined over the past nine years. The 2023 total allocation has the lowest allocation (in nine years) of 4.9 percent. 

An Associate Professor at the University of Lafia, Dr Joseph Okwori, told Dataphyte that Nigeria’s education crises were multifaceted. He asserted that the quality of education in Nigeria had been endangered by the sector’s commercialisation, low staff enrollment, and issues with funding and education quality.

He said that the new administration needed to develop a structure to reform the educational system.

“Nigeria’s infrastructure and educational standards also need to be considerably improved, and employee compensation in the education sector has to be evaluated because poor staff compensation encourages and escalates corruption,” he added.