by Adedayo Ademuwagun

They say education is the bedrock of a nation’s development and they’re probably right. Education paves the way for people to change their lives and change things around them.

Governments should be spending half their budget on education in an ideal world. But this is not an ideal world. This is Nigeria.

The first step to improving higher education in Nigeria is to commit to spend more money on education. For a long time now, past governments have put less than 10% for education in their yearly budget. It’s simply not enough.

Now Buhari says in his manifesto that he’ll ‘target’ 20% for education a year to revamp the sector. First off, note he didn’t say he’ll definitely spend that sum. He said he’ll ‘target’, which suggests it’s probably not going to happen.

If the government doesn’t even have a bulky budget for education in the first place, it means there’s not much they’ll spend on building more infrastructure and providing better facilities for learning and research.

So to show that it’s serious about making higher education better, the Buhari government has to continually spend more on education and then follow through with it to make sure the increased spending is producing the desired results.

The government wants to implement ‘a performance based education system as against the current certificate based qualification’ in order to combat exam fraud and make learning more productive for students. It’s a good idea that’s long overdue.

The curriculums need to be revised. Much of what the people are learning are barely applicable to modern life. The focus is on memorising the material and passing the exams whether or not the students really understand the course and can apply what they’re learning to get results and make things better in the real world.

The certificate is what ultimately matters to most students, and it’s partly because that’s how the system is wired.

The system is wired to arm you with a certificate if you pass your exams and put you out with not much to show for it in terms of what you can do with what you’ve learned. So we need the government to look into that.

Once I was at the faculty of technology at a top federal university in the country and I was looking to speak to some outstanding students from that faculty for a story.

So I asked the offices to see if there were any students who had invented something or done something innovative in technology based on what they were learning. There was no student like that in the faculty. Not one single student.

So what exactly is the faculty of technology there for when the students aren’t making anything new or anything useful to the world through technology? What are they in school for? Is it just to get by, pass their exams and receive credentials?

We can’t make advancements as a country in fields like this if we keep producing graduates that aren’t applying what they’re learning to do something new and useful for the society. The system badly needs to change.

The interesting thing is that the APC government says it with establish at least six new universities of science and technology around the country, whereas the APC people heavily skewered Jonathan’s move to set up new universities. They said it didn’t make sense and that he should have spent the money developing the old ones. But you know that’s politics. You pull down your opponent by all means so that you can climb up.

Setting up new schools is actually a fine idea because every year over a million young Nigerians sit the UTME and many of them don’t get into university because the existing ones are overwhelmed and can only take as many students.

With the new schools, more students can get into university and progress with their education. Jonathan did the right thing on this note, but he was criticised unfairly for it and the incoming government should acknowledge him for setting the pace for their own plan to set up new schools.

One thing that’s been the bane of higher education in Nigeria is that the system is unstable. Often unions go on strike and students cannot continue with their studies for some time. This disruption of the academic calendar has long been a problem in the system. If you went to university, polytechnic or college in the last 25 years, you probably spent an extra year doing your course because of union strikes.

The unions are always fighting with the government over some issue about their working conditions and the state of the institutions they work in. It’s deplorable.

So while the union leaders and the people in government throw the kitchen sink at each other, students sit at home and watch the drama in the evening news. Then after some months of ‘negotiations’ the unions would agree to return to work and the schools will reopen.

Give it a year later, the unions will strike again and the students would be back in the same boat. This same thing happened during Jonathan’s tenure. He didn’t create these problems. He inherited them.

Buhari too has inherited them from Jonathan. But people believe strongly that he’s going to turn things around and hand down a better education system to whoever will be president after him. It’s not easy to fix a battered system, but President Jonathan has made things better than he met them. Buhari must do the same.

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Connect with the writer via Twitter @_Adedayo_