Oshisada: Quest for improved education system

KNOWLEDGE is power. But it must not be half-baked knowledge. The Guardian’s editorial opinion of August 22, 2014, motivates this opinion piece. Entitled “National emergency on education now!”, it stated, inter alia: “A situation, where out of the 1,692,435 candidates who sat for the May/June 2014 West African Senior Certificate Examination (WASSCE) only 529,425, representing 31.28 per cent could obtain credits in five subjects and above, including English and Mathematics, is disturbing. Majority of the candidates numbering 1,163,010 or 68.72 per cent failed! This is a disaster deserving of a national emergency”. The unprecedented poor result is the pivot around which this piece revolves. Before a surgical operation to remedy the situation, the searchlight must be turned on the whys and the wherefores of it.

As often as not, students are blamed for their mass failures. In my considered opinion, it is a misplaced reproof. Admittedly, students cannot entirely be absolved, but even so, there is more to it than meets the eye. With candour, I can asseverate that the whole system of our education is rotten from the top to the bottom. How else to begin, if not from our Ministries of Education throughout the Federation? There is no state that is particularly put in focus or exempted, because all states present candidates for the School Certificate Examinations. Our education policy is defective. Let us take, for instance, the limit that is placed on the age for the employment of teachers.

Anybody who is above 30 years is not eligible for employment as a teacher in some states, thus closing the gates to the quality ones. There are better teachers above this age-limit and they are not employed, giving opportunity to the mediocrities. In a school where the blind are leading the blind, is this not suicidal? Good teachers are shut out of the classrooms because of the age-limit of 30 years. It is argued that the policy is meant to create employments for young ones, but the complaint is common that there are no sufficient teachers. My understanding is that the creation of the opportunity for unemployed youths from our universities has the corollary of employing mediocre. Why not deliberately and specially train professionals like in the old Western Region before Free Education Policy of 1955? This age-limit policy has the effect of cutting our nose to spite our face, because they are not professionally qualified.

There is a saying: “The fundamental secret of success in any endeavour is interest”. Ironically, the under-30 who are employed lack interest to teach. For diverse reasons, they have their interest somewhere else. Teaching profession is meant for the cool, calm and collected individuals, but not for the choleric and tempestuous minds. To impart knowledge demands the patience of Job. A teacher must not be a terror to his students. If the students are to be held spell-bound, the teachers must not be irascible; force must not be met with force. The collision is disastrous. Therefore, age-limit of 30 years must be expunged as a policy, to allow for matured teachers. Be that as it may, I am not advocating that the aged and frazzled octogenarians should be drafted to the school rooms. Far from that. This is not all.

Politics of parochialism is another factor that is bedeviling our education system. Because a prospective teacher is “the son of the soil”, he stands the chance of being employed. I fail to believe how a barber is fit for service in a carpenter’s workshop. But in some states in the federation, this is the vogue. Non-indigenes have no chance of becoming principals, however, competent or experienced that they may be. Does this parochial policy make for successes at School Certificate Examination? An indigene may not be as fit as a non-indigene. The thrust of my argument is that competence must be the priority.

Another bane of the system is the inadequacy of staff in the number of schools; sufficient teachers are not employed to cope with the teaming population of students. There must be certain ratio of students to teachers, or teachers to students –30 to one teacher, or at most 40. This is manageable. In most cases, we have 50 and above to one teacher. Classes are often combined under single teacher. To further complicate the affairs, states’ ministries of education organise seminars for classroom teachers during school hours. This policy smacks of bad administration, because classes are abandoned without teachers and are combined to have free days. In such situation the single teachers are frustrated and unable to cope. The holidays must be reserved for seminars and not the precious school periods when they are expected to be teaching. Devil finds job for idle hands; students find themselves at loose ends to engage in rascality. Why seminars at school-hours? Nothing is wrong in organising seminars to update the skills of the teachers, but not in precious time. It must be cancelled forthwith. Besides, more buildings must be constructed to absorb students. With antecedent as a trained and certificated teacher of 13 years’ standing, I am aware that, if an environment, particularly a school building, is not conducive to learning, students are discomforted. What with ill-equipped and ill-maintained science laboratories? Whose faults, the students’ or the governments’?

The saying is apt, “If the foundation of a house is not well laid, the superstructure cannot stand; it shall collapse”. Students in the lower classes are not properly forged, because of the policy of automatic promotion which seeks to leave room for generations of fresh students. To achieve the purpose, teachers are urged to inflate marks for students to have undeserved “pass”. Getting to the higher classes, the mediocre students become mill-stones around the necks of the new teachers. So, the chains of mediocrities continue ceaselessly. By the time these generations of mediocre students reach Senior Secondary Three to sit for their final examinations, there is nothing in their brains to merit success, much to the parents’ chagrin.

With the earlier counterfeit results, parents are merely strung along in the belief that they are clever stuff. This has the corollary of breeding examination cheats who cause problems to West African Examination Council. Here, the WAEC comes under a search light. The examination cheats constitute big link in the chains of problems to our education system. What with special centres for candidates? In the 1999 Constitution (with the 2011 amendments), education is in the concurrent legislative list. What has become of the Examination Malpractice Laws? How many parents, students or wards and officials have been prosecuted? If found guilty, how many of these are punished? Tolerance of malpractice breeds more malpractices. Something is wrong somewhere. No agency of education is absolved from blame.

Parents have their blames. Most of them have no time for the children other than the pursuit of cheap, but undeserved “good” results. In the days of yore, children would return from schools to present their work for scrutiny by parents. Most students have no text books and other materials to aid studies, but parents’ resources for frivolities are unlimited – aso ebi and trinkets galore. Parents must be paying token school fees to inject seriousness into their psyche.

Some private schools are excellent; others are sub-standard. Their teachers are not encouraged in terms of salaries – poor and unpaid when and as due. Proprietors are facing miscellaneous taxations from states governments, which they blame for poor payments of teachers. School Inspectors’ temerity for incessant illegal demands from schools’ owners do not help the education system. Poor salaries are blamed on multiple taxations from state governments. However it must be remembered that the proprietors are themselves greedy of establishing several branches all over the place at the expense of teachers’ welfare. Students are not entirely blameless. It is customary to label them variously as ciphers, blockheads and lazy drones in pursuit of primrose paths to their studies. Who creates the environment for them to fit into these descriptions? Definitely the governments do. These children were born into the system and nurtured. So, they are enmeshed in it. Why are leaders seeking for escape routes from blames? Finally, bureaucratic power, control and procedure create the unwillingness to accept advice or suggestions from outsiders, like the Media. Bureaucrats believe that, like the proverbial tortoise in our folklore, they are the wisest. Every year, print media devote spaces and other resources to Editorial comments about our children’s dismal performances. What efforts do Governments make to remedy the situation? Nil is the answer. Governments turn deaf ears to suggestions proffered in these Editorials. In the subsequent years, more dismal results are recorded. Now, The Guardian in its issue of August 22, 2014, declared emergency on education, in the interests of our future manpower needs. How are the governments co-operating with the print media to meet the challenges? The nation is waiting.

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