The Generational Impacts of Politics on Education In Nigeria: Higher Education As Case Study-by Godspower Stanley Afereno

 Today's event is centred on the theme, "The Generational Impacts of Politics on Education In Nigeria: Higher Education As Case Study"

We shall first be looking at the definition of terms.

What is education?

Education is the action or process of educating or of being educated. It is also a stage of such a process.

Education is the knowledge and development resulting from the process of being educated.

Education is professionally the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools.

Source: Merriam Webster

 UNESCO believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and that access must be matched by quality. ... Its work encompasses educational development from pre-school to higher education and beyond. Education must be made accessible to all.

 According to Marcus Garvey,

*To be educated is to be learned in all that is worthwhile knowing. Not to be crammed with the subject matter of books of the classroom. But to store away in your head, those facts as may be required for daily application that you may be better in all things.*

It is on the basis of the importance of education to human development that pushed the United Nations, under the Human Rights Declaration, through UNESCO in 1948 to make education a fundamental human right with quality and accessibility. Devoid of discrimination and class division. As it urged all nations and governments to give priority to their education sectors. As it declares that;

"26% of the entire annual budget of developing nations (of which Nigeria falls into) should be channeled towards education if such nation must grow beyond its current measurement of advancement. "

It is also true that;

"No nation of the world can rise above the quality of its education" and as such, education should be made accessible and affordable and if possible, free for the less privileged.

*Introduction*

Nigeria operates a tricycle system of education. These are the basic primary, secondary and tertiary education system (afereno 2015). It is expected that the running of these levels of education is based on professionalism, expertise and continuous training of personnels in order to have a standardized system of education. Therefore, those appointed by political actors to run such platforms must be possessing the needed qualifications mentioned above in order to have both an effect manpower and also a productive out flux of graduates that in turn contributes to the development of a nation.

 Historically, one can trace education to the primitive age. And its height came during the Renaissance age and thereafter the age of industrialization whereby men started inventing machines to bring about production.

 Before then, we've had various unity schools, missionary schools and some traditional institutions that were also well managed by the local authorities.

In Africa, education has long existed, even before the advent of the Europeans and the transatlantic slave trade where Africans were sold and transported abroad as slaves and objects of workforce.

Narrowing it down to Nigeria, we have seen that the University College situated at West Africa's largest city, Ibadan, was the first higher institution to exist even before independence.

In the 60's, 70's and 80's, one could recall that education was either free or affordable for almost every Nigeria that wished to study. I had a personal experience of such benefit when I was at Government Comprehensive Primary School, Ahoada West, Rivers State where what was called school fees then was rendering 6 native brooms to the school authorities (through the Head Master) rather than the exorbitant fees paid today. This account even dates back to the late 90's and early 2000's but unfortunately, things started deteriorating and education was gradually becoming a thing for the rich and most privileged of the Nigerian society.

 Even professional examination like can't be afforded by many Nigerians as a result of its costly nature. For example, in 2009 at Government Comprehensive Secondary School (GCSS), Mbiama, Rivers State, I registered for WAEC for about #25,000 (twenty five thousand naira) minus other hidden charges.

Now tell me, how can a family who are barely paid the then #18,000 minimum wage pay a #25,000 fee for their child? Or let's even assume they have about 2 to 3 children to write such an examination that same period.

 This is where the role of government comes to play. But the question here is, has the government done enough in recent times to foster education in Nigeria as declared by the UNESCO (of which Nigeria is a member and signatory) in 1948? This is our next point. But because of scope and time, we shall be limited our forensic analysis to higher institutions, more especially, the University system.

It is true that the body responsible for education in Nigeria is the government. And in the government, just as amongst other Parastatas are the ministries of education. Whether at the local, state or federal levels. In the ministry of education also lies the various political and nonpolitical bodies and departments. 

The ministry as it is now is headed by A Minister of Education who presently is Mallam Adamu Adamu at the federal level.

In the early times of education in Nigeria, those appointed to run the education sector were those of intellectual capacity, expertise and experience in educational matters thereby putting square pegs in square holes. Education was made either free or affordable with minimal cost and also were job opportunities for graduates as many government owned industries were still at full function. There was priority given to research work and practicals which is one of the major factors of creating Universities. Teachers were well trained and also well paid. Electricity was stable to make learning and teaching easier. Government was actually pumping so much into education and Nigeria was doing very well. In fact, most athletes that represented Nigeria in various international sporting competitions then were mainly from educational institutions. Schools were well equipped with sporting facilities, laboratories, libraries, art studios, and quality assessment of staffs. Not to forget then Teachers Training College (TTC). The government institutions, which is not only counting the educational institutions but also power sector, production and industrial sectors, oil & gas sector, transport, agriculture, information & communication were all doing fantastically well. But along the line, something happened. These sectors started dying.

 But what is responsible for this decadence of these institutions, including the educational institutions or sectors?

This is what we will find out as we relate education to the current political system being operated by Nigeria.

 The advent of the principles of borrowing from the international world such as *World Bank* and *International Monetary Funds (IMF)* is one key factor militating against the general development and growth of not just Nigeria but Africa in general.

This is because, borrowing creates debt rates to a country and also currency devaluation.

Another cause is lack of productive forces. We are in a country where virtually every production, manufacturing and service rendering sectors either privatized or destroyed. Destroyed by the policies of privatization, commercialisation and deregulation imposed on African countries by the imperialist nations like Britain, USA, France, Portugal and most recently, China.

This inability to produce locally, what we consume gives room for the devaluation of our currencies in comparison with dollars, euros, pounds, Yen etc thereby dictating the pace of growth in negotiating power at the international market. Nigeria is mainly dependent on crude oil rather than diversification of the economy, fully controlled by the government. It is on this ground that a government such as that of Nigeria will choose to sell government institutions to private hands whose sole aim is to make profit rather than humanitarian and welfarism oriented.

 Further more, it is noticed that many politicians or their friends or relatives own private schools. It is also noticed that many politicians have their children schooling abroad. One would wonder why such a politician should be concerned with the development of a public school or public education generally.

For private sectors to flourish, the public sector must be made nonfunctional. And this can be made possible only by those politically in charge of the education sector. The politicians.

 This is why both states and the federal government would give 6% of total budget to education as against the recommended 26% by the UNESCO. A percentage that can not take even the infrastructural development of just polytechnics, not to talk more of Universities and Colleges of Education.

*Solutions and ways forward*

Since, we've been able to analyse historically the problems of education in relations to the political decadence, which now affects the sector, one must look out for ways to solving them. It is no doubt that there countries that are better equipped educationally and whose education is not only assessable but free and qualitative for all citizens. Such can be seen in Cuba, Finland, Norway, Sweden etc also to mention their free and assessable health care system. Government takes full responsibility of the management and maintenance of infrastructure and staff empowerment. But one would ask, with the enormous endowment of natural and mineral resources in Nigeria, why can't we match up the standard of such countries mentioned above despite their minimal opportunity to natural resources as Nigeria? The answer is simply the decadence in the political system and foreign influence on our political and economic life. The more you have drop outs or uneducated people the better for a government who would prefer dormant and gullible citizenry that have no education background and knowledge to challenge their mischievous misrule which eventually leads to massive looting of the nations wealth into their private pockets and also making their private enterprises flourish at the detriment of those owned by government.

In civilized and advanced countries social amenities are the responsibility of government. Power (electricity), water, roads, etc are all taken care of by government but in Nigeria, it is otherwise. Virtually everything is been privatized. Almost to the point public universities are now gradually been privatized. This is seen in the recent speedy increase in tuition (school) fees, hostel accommodation fees, Inter-faculty transfer fees, acceptance, course registration fees, development fees, medical (NHIS) fees etc in which those who can not afford or are less privileged to available funds will be forced out of school or engage in Nefast activities in order to keep up the pace. This in turn brings about vices within campus. Cultism, Prostitution, examination malpractices or engaging in work-study which divides attention from studies and in some cases, such work-study individuals are still owed by university authorities.

To resolve the Nigerian education system, many factors should considered and also, mechanism must be put in place.

The first stage should be;

- Proper funding of the sector to develop the physical infrastructural facilities like Science & medical laboratories, libraries, research platforms, lecture theatres, workshops, ICT centers, hostels, mechanized agricultural farms etc that creates the conduciveness for learning, research and community services.

The government must also look into manpower building. This where comfortable salaries and allowances must be paid to both academic and nonacademic staffs of the system in order to make them function well in their various classrooms and research platforms.

Also, the government must look into democratization of the school system where the school is allowed to run independently without interference by political or state actors. The school must be given the ground to run its affairs and activities without interference. Independent Unionism must be allowed. This brings about checkmating the excesses of administrators.

The various unions must also play their respective roles in order to maintain fairness, peace, justice and equity within school premises.

 Schools, rather than inflict pains on poor and downtrodden students and their not privileged parents must look into internal production and generation of funds via the various fields of study. Example, through the faculty of agriculture, food can be produced and sold to raise funds. The mass communication and engineering departments can look into building radio and television stations that can also raise funds through broadcasting and advertisements. Engineering and biotechnology departments can look into inventing bio energy and so on.

There are thousands of ways school authorities can raise funds to run an educational institution even without depending on the government. But even at that, government is primarily responsible for the education of its people. The moment a government fails in that regards, that's when the country starts collapsing and getting to a stage of underdevelopment. If Walter Rodney described "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" he must also be talking of how African leaders underdeveloped their educational institutions thereby leading Africa to the point of utmost illiteracy and vast poverty.

 How can a Nigerian senator be earning over #30m a month while a professor ends less  than a million naira

 Things need to change

 Nigeria can no longer afford to waste money on politicians

 They must learn to invest in education because that is the bed rock of development

 Harvard University alone prouds a budget of over 144 trillion in 4 years where as, the entire Nigeria budget for education in the last ten years can't be compared to that of Harvard alone. It is a shame for a nation with enormous mineral and natural resources like Nigeria

 The mentality of youths not been interested in governmental issues must also change. We need to start holding our leaders accountable for their misrule

We must also revive and unite the various unions in our institutions to have a formidable force to press in demands as it affects both students and staff

To conclude, I will like to take a quote which states that "illiteracy fuels violence. And an uneducated mind is a potential criminal"

Thank you