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By Professor Owolabi Hakeem
Education is a path to greatness, discovery, promotion and top attainment. It is the solution to diseases, poverty, lack and ignorance.
We could go on and on unending to list and mention possible gains of education.
But, sincerely, that is not what we have in Nigeria.
We do have a very good curriculum from the federal government and fantastic schemes of work designed by states government
Having seen the curriculums of other nations, our curriculum remains second to none.
However, the Nigerian curriculum has spelt out what will be learnt, those to learn them and the direction of the country some years after.
But we do have human factors and tamperings trampling upon the good messages contained in our curriculum.
Our failure to abide by the dictates of the scheme, adhering to instructions and following the step-by-step of its working have all cost us a huge price of watered down curriculum
Greed, lust for money, corruption and lack of vision to promote the vision of past leaders in education have all combined powerfully to stagnate our education.
When owners of schools do not see anything wrong in having a child not matured enough to be in move to such class.
A case of a seven year-old pupil being in primary 4 or a nine year-old in Junior Secondary school, say, JSS1. All these happen.
A case of helping primary school pupils write entrance examination in the hall which has become rampant and occurs every year without anyone calling for a scapegoat consequences.
Underserved promotion of pupils which has caused many of such to skip some courses, and without helping to analyze the consequences of such double or multiple promotion
The corrupt tendency of government officials and failure of government functionaries to obey their own rules, for instance the 500metre-separation rule that explains the distance that should exist or separate one school from the other
Absence holistic and rich inspection to schools.
The absence of staff recruitment policy and the lack of stipulated qualification requirements.
The lack of strict verification of claims by teachers employed at schools has robbed badly on our education.
The state of structure and facilities have in one way or the other affected the quality of education being rolled out of our schools.
The consequences of all these are beginning to stare us in the face. The dangerous attitude we adopted a few years back are staring us in the faces now and challenging our living standards.
We may not have thought of that but they are the realities of today as this young children we helped to cheat through primary, secondary, and higher education are now out as our engineers who have built substandard buildings, as medical doctors who have forgotten surgeon’s tools in the patients, as bankers who reveal the secret of the customer. They are the same in politics, and all they thing about is themselves and their family, deeping their hands in the nations wealth corruptly
They are the new young people in businesses today as businessmen and women who defraud their customers in both quality and quantity of products.
We must get it right. We must be ready to change the narratives and put things right for today and generation coming.
Our education must be taken away from paper and painted in practicality.
As far as today is concerned, our education is in a big mess, everyone is corrupt, parents, teachers, owners of schools, teachers, the law enforcement agents to check them and even the education monitors who are supposed to demand altruistic behavior and even the religious leaders who are by their calling expected to campaign against malpractises have their schools and places of worship involved one way or the other.
It is time for government at all level to stand their ground, joined by disciplined parents and collaboratingly assisted by owners of schools who do not think money alone, but love of nation and service to humanity.
The deep strictness of the law enforcement agency will return for us a nation whose education is globally competitive and internationally acceptable.
