2013 has been a year of mixed fortunes for Nigerian education.
I recall with much grief the series of school shootings that took
place in Borno and Yobe states; tens of young Nigerians cruelly cut down
in their hostels and classrooms.
2013 was also the year the ‘A World At School’ campaign gained
prominence. The campaign seeks to draw attention to the fact that
Nigeria has the largest number of out-of-school children in the entire
world. (More than ten million Nigerian children who should be in school
are not getting an education).
To the government’s credit an ambitious Almajiri education scheme has
been put in place. This year the Federal government built and handed
over tens of Almajiri Model Schools to state governments. As part of
this Scheme there’s a commendable focus on girl-child education.
This was also the year of the five-month ASUU strike. Just when we
thought we had put lengthy University strikes behind us, this happened;
putting the lives of our youth on hold seemingly indefinitely. Even
though the strike ended up extracting, from the government, an
unprecedented commitment to funding our public Universities, one wishes
those gains didn’t have to come at so high a price, for our youth.
Amidst all the turmoil in our education – much cause, no doubt, for sober reflection – I’d like to make a proposal.
In making this proposal it should be taken for granted that I’m also
offering my full commitment to supporting the realisation of what I’m
proposing.
I’d like to make a call for a Nigerian education summit, to bring all
concerned parties to the discussion table, to craft a new vision for
bringing education to Nigeria’s teeming youth population.
The question that immediately arises is this: why another summit? To what end?
My answer would be:
how about a different kind of education summit.
How about a summit that places, at the forefront of proceedings, the
most important stakeholders in education – the students themselves.
I say this because I’m aware that education summits are not a novel
idea in Nigeria. A Google search will throw up a number of summits, at
state, regional and national levels, in recent years.
What all these summits have in common is that they focus on bringing
together governments, teachers unions, and other adult stakeholders.
But the students, who are the ones for whom education systems should
exist, are kept outside the door, or on the margins. Our summits become
gatherings of policy makers speaking to other policy makers and
implementers.
Perhaps, in the spirit of a new year, we can allow ourselves to try a
new idea: an education summit in which the policy makers and education
experts actually come to listen to the students, the stakeholders who
most intensely feel the pinch of the system’s failings and shortcomings.
I’m very much convinced that there can be no significant improvement
in the state of education in Nigeria without the active input of
students.
In August my office put out a call for submissions for an essay
contest on Education Solutions for Nigeria. We got more than 600 entries
from Nigerian students within and outside the country. Hundreds of
young Nigerians boldly making their voices heard about the education
system they’re daily forced to contend with.
The short excerpt below, from one of the winning entries (by Emeka
Ezekwesiri, Law, University of Ibadan), highlights the importance of
empowering students, within and outside the classroom.
In my secondary school, Federal Government
College Ohafia, in 2006 the then newly appointed vice principal academic
introduced a policy, where secretly appointed students in each class
kept an attendance sheet for teachers, where they recorded teachers
attendance based on five criteria; came on time and taught, came early
but left early, came late but taught, came late and left early, absent.
These students were unknown to the class and teachers but the policy was
publicly announced in order for teachers to be aware. These students
were concealed to prevent victimization. The teachers were effectively
disciplined after verification of the reported conduct. Through this
monitoring scheme, teachers became very serious to the amazement of
students, who were forced to also become serious.
Clearly, we need to re-design Nigeria’s education systems in a way
that puts some power in the hands of students, allows them to feel like
equal and valued parties in the matrix of learning and knowledge
dissemination.
And what better way to start this than by giving these students a
prominent place in a gathering that aims to chart a new future for
Nigerian education.
It is my dream that someday in the near future, when the Federal
Government and Teachers’ Unions like ASUU are coming together to discuss
critical education issues, the wisdom and insight of our students will
be eagerly sought and welcomed in the conversation. That we will no
longer carry on as though our students are marginal partners in
education.
It is my belief that we can’t call them the future of our country,
and yet persist in trying to keep them out of the most important
conversations required to prepare them to become that future.
Source: http://atiku.org/aa/2013/12/29/the-education-summit-we-need/
