Saving A Dying Nation

A classic and well-researched newspaper opinion article titled: “The Geography Of Illiteracy”, written by Dr Babatunde Ahonsi, and published in The Guardian of June 2011, unearthed the worrisome figures that should keep every good Nigerian busy with a thought on where we went amiss in our education sector. The figures Ahonsi released were chilling, to say the least. They show how depleted our education had gone.
Thank you, Dr Ahonsi. I believe and accept every part of your work and research. It can even be worse. Your article was balanced – problem stated and solutions proffered. This piece is to sound the warning louder, state where we got it wrong and highlight some other solutions with examples to the ones you proffered.
Illiteracy must occur in a place where parents, students and the society alike do not give a hoot on how academic success came about but concentrate more on the ‘success’ itself. They will always quote the clandestine adage, “the end justifies the means”. Yes, the end has not only killed our education but is also killing our society. The break down will lend credence to this assertion.
The North East and North West as well as South South are the worst hit, and that answers the mayhem that has characterized those places. But this is just the secondary cause. The family is failing as an agent of socialization in Nigeria, and this failure cum corruption in our society is the bane of our education system.
Academic success in our country now is not viewed in the number of work put in, but seen from the paper a child presents to their parents. The parents are far too busy with wealth accumulation or trying to survive in a harsh economic environment. They forgo salient aspects of their duty in the child’s life like helping out in homework, teaching the child the rudiments of hard work. The lack of moral upbringing that is evident in our generation is contributing too.
So, like opportunity cost in economics, the parents search for money and forgo knowledge and morality. Can we eat our cake and have it? Geography of illiteracy is what we ask for! Abraham Lincoln was not a fool when he pleaded with his son’s teacher to “teach him that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five pounds I had not earned.” Morality is what he was advocating.
Why are we experiencing this geography of illiteracy? This is the focus of this piece. Outside the ones enumerated above, corruption caused by low moral rectitude is another. The paper is more important than what is upstairs. The parents encourage this; corrupt teachers and education policy makers aid them. Parents pay money for examination malpractice for their children, some schools, mainly private ones encourage this to swell their number – runaway, that is the economics of private schools in Nigeria. The policy makers draw up mediocre education policy. I will visit that later!
I was severely punished in my senior secondary school one (SSS 1) for reporting a teacher who gave an “A” to my classmate who could hardly read then in Bible Knowledge because the said teacher was given an envelope by the student. So, we asked for it and it is very much with us – the geography of illiteracy.
What is the way forward should concern us now, and not really the past. But the past is necessary in order to correct the present and get the future right. That was why Jesus always used stories to teach, and it was highly effective. One thing that needs urgent attention is our education policy: Standard Six system; primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and higher institution (aka 6-3- 3-4), and Universal Basic Education (UBE) are all good if given adequate care and attention.
Our learning and evaluation modes are chaotic, to say the least. Pupils are taught from September to December, only to be given hordes of tests a week before examinations. For instance, a child covers all the chapters for test and examinations. How bizarre!
This is because the time the teacher was supposed to use for the test must have been used for farming (in the rural areas) and trading (in the urban centres) by the teacher, to augment his pay for enhanced living condition. This has a distance relation – poor pay. But the world standard is for homework to be given to a student from every topic and quiz as well as test to be administered at the end of every chapter.
In fact, in countries like the United States, South Korea, and England, the pupil might not write an examination since they must have been tested in all chapters, and to me, that is thorough compared to the kangaroo examinations we conduct here. That is the true test of knowledge! If the child did not do well – a euphemism for failure – they will enroll for summer school, and it is only when the child fails again that he repeats the class. Compare this to our education system, and you will see that our education policies are flawed.
Teachers’ remuneration is another issue. Teachers are so poorly paid that they look for other things to do in order to supplement. Do I blame them? They have a reason! “Man must whack”.Some of them are owed months of salaries and allowances. The effect is beyond this. Poor pay has driven away intelligent people from teaching. Go to a school and ask the top 15 students what career choice they would like to pursue after school and you will understand the danger facing education. You will hear medicine, law, journalism, accountancy, petrochemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering, among others. Teaching will rarely or never be mentioned.
Reading materials are of immense contribution to teaching and learning. Our textbooks should always be critically examined before they are recommended. What we see are watery texts that are not helpful. Most of the books are not explanatory; they smack of carelessness, and lack detailed analysis.
For instance, what kind of Mathematics textbook will just state a ten-step solving problem, only to scribble it down as a four-step? Some English textbooks draw sketches in a writing topic without scripting an example. Does that not smack of misinformation? They are part of the geography of illiteracy!
Scholarships and educational aids like free books and good laboratory equipment are necessary but they are neglected in our country. The oil companies give pseudo scholarships; schools and churches do not deem that necessary; federal, state and local governments have since forgotten about it. Temple, a public affairs analyst, writes from Port Harcourt.

By: Uwalaka Temple