Nigerian educational system has been said to be devoid of originality, a situation that has kept the nation at risk of continued dilemmas, frustration and overall underdevelopment.
A Professor of Philosophy of Education, Prof Gabriel Ekwueme Elechi, revealed this at the 28th Inaugural Lecture of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education(IAUOE), PortHarcourt, last Thursday.
Delivering his lecture with the title, Violation of Nigeria’s Ancient Landmarks: The Bane of Nigeria’s Indigenous Education System’, Elechi noted with dismay the crisis besetting Nigeria’s national life, attributing the root cause to the absence of originality.
Elechi stated that almost every aspect of the Nigeria’s life particularly education, which comfortably would have been the progenitor to all factors of national development was copied from somewhere without proper concern for the sustainability and amenability to the nation’s contextual peculiarities.
Elechi, who averred that any meaningful education must spring from a people’s culture and peculiar circumstances, maintained that the Nigerian education system had deviated from its ancient landmarks to the western system of education, which he said had polluted and threatened the health of the nation.
While noting that the most important principle of colonial education was that of capitalist individualism, the education philosopher said colonial education system has brought more problems than the system could contend with.
 He described the western education system as” an educational system which has openly encouraged privatisation, commercialisation and deregulation of education for the sole purpose of making money, an educational system which has neglected the traditional, cultural and spiritual values that form the matrix and psychological elements by which Nigerians lived, an educational system that is very high in utilitarian criteria and low on good character”, saying”the more one scrutinises the educational contributions of colonialism even in quantitative terms, the more it shrinks into insignificance or reveals the numerous absurdities in the wholesome transplantation of a version of European education into Nigeria”.
Elechi, therefore advocated the compulsory reintroduction of the teaching of the history of Nigerian people and culture beginning from the primary school level up to the secondary school levels stressing that it must be pursued with all vigour in the bid to authenticate the nation’s existence.
He stressed the need for synergy between philosophers of education, curriculum experts and child psychologists in consideration of a suitable curriculum across all stages of the nation’s education system.
“We have every conceivable need to return to a system that will be beneficial to all of us. We need to rebuild our foundation that has been destroyed and reclaim our ancient landmarks on which lie our individual self-actualisation and sustainable national development”, Elechi said.

By: Lady Godknows Ogbulu