by Dipo Awojide

The African Youth Charter suggests that “every young person shall have the right to education of good quality and the education of young people shall be directed to the promotion and holistic development of the young person’s cognitive, creative and emotional abilities to their full potential.”

You will agree with me that our education sector isn’t really providing us with quality education neither do we have the capabilities for development to realise our full potentials. I wasn’t too surprised when I heard about the results of the May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination where a total of 529,425 candidates, representing 31%, obtained credits in five (5) subjects and above, including English Language and Mathematics. “When compared to the 2012 and 2013 May/June WASSCE diets, there was marginal decline in the performance of candidates as 38% was recorded in 2012 and 36% in 2013.” It is not cool to read about mass failure and just move on as though it doesn’t really matter, of course it does. Of course the future of young people should matter to decision makers and the rest of us. We may choose to start by asking what exactly went wrong, why are these kids failing and performance dropping year on year? Are the teacher’s doing a good job? Is it really the fault of our students or the fault of our systems and practices? Is it that our systems have failed us or we are failing ourselves? The challenges in the secondary education sector needs to be reviewed and strategies for change formulated and implemented. This is the same for tertiary education.

Besides, the standard practice across most Federal and State Universities in Nigeria is that students study with candle light and lamps with poor lighting for months. From University of Abuja to University of Jos, Bayero University Kano, Nasarawa State University, Adekunle Ajasin University and University of Lagos amongst other Universities, the narrative is not any different.

As a child growing up in a middle-class family in Nigeria, I was privileged to own a laptop in my 3^rd year while at University, precisely in 2007. Though I had a laptop, I always had to decide between paying for internet connection and starving for days. I am sure not up to 20% of Nigerian students can boast of having a personal laptop as at today. What sort of research does one do without a personal laptop or internet connection? How can Nigerian students engage the world when they are locked up in a ‘small box’ within one University community? It is this lack of research facilities (laptops, desktops in common rooms, internet connection etc.) that has turned our students into copy and paste professionals. Nigerian students hardly carry out any research, they just copy from existing works from textbooks and journals and paste where necessary. This does not encourage a critical thinking process neither does it encourage productive speculations. Students are not encouraged to think critically or present logical and succinct reports. During examinations, they are mostly encouraged to ‘give back what the lecturers taught in the classroom’. This is the main reason most of us find it very challenging when we travel abroad to study. Our ingrained culture of copy and paste which we have practised for over 10 years while in Nigeria becomes very difficult to change. Thus, many lag behind and struggle, some even drop out at the end.

Besides, the standard practice across most Federal and State Universities in Nigeria is that students study with candle light and lamps with poor lighting for months. From University of Abuja to University of Jos, Bayero University Kano, Nasarawa State University, Adekunle Ajasin University and University of Lagos amongst other Universities, the narrative is not any different.

The way forward is simple – continuous investment. We need to continually invest in the education sector. The quality of our systems can and should be upgraded because what we currently have isn’t sustainable. We should invest in training and development of academics. We should take steps to ensure that the learning experience of Nigerian students (both at the tertiary and secondary level) are of the best quality similar to those obtainable in other progressive nations of the world. We should make higher education a priority in our budgets as well as provide avenues for standard internships where students can gain practical industrial experience across Nigeria. We cannot afford to leave these things to fate or luck. We cannot continue to hope that our Universities will get better or that our students will perform better in the WAEC or NECO examinations. Hope is not and has never been a strategy. Importantly, we need to create education policies which favours both the middle class and the lower class, not just the elites. There should be a level playing field for all students. It has been reported that employees especially in the private sector prefer candidates from Private Universities to Federal or State institutions. We should upgrade our Federal and State Universities to the level of our Private Universities in Nigeria, and the Government should increase funding and provide more scholarships.

This point has been made repeatedly but we have to continue to emphasis it. We deserve FREE internet connection across our Universities both in lecture halls, hostels and in our libraries. Ultimately, we need to formulate and implement some drastic educational policies which may assist in moving the education sector forward. Some may argue that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we can strive towards a world class education sector, if only we try.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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Dipo Awojide is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Ambidextrous Consult. He is a BSc Accounting Holder from the University of Abuja, Nigeria. He obtained an MSc in International Business with Distinction from Coventry University, United Kingdom. Dipo joined Loughborough University as a PhD Doctoral Researcher in 2011 and lectures part time at Nottingham Trent University.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.