Nigeria's Vision 20:2020 has nine years left to be achieved. It aims at making the national economy one of the twenty biggest in the world. As the count down continues, this article aims at establishing a relationship between economic growth and the educational system, and submits that no tangible development is possible without qualitative and functional education.
Economists agree that certain conditions must exist for the economy to grow. One of these is adequate power generation and supply. It will reduce the cost of doing business and motivate the siting of small-scale enterprises like barbing or hair-dressing salons and thus reduce unemployment. Another is security. Cases of armed robbery, kidnapping and vandalization must be minimum so that investors can feel safe doing business. The role of a viable education in all this can not be overemphasized. It is from researches in schools that ideas are discovered, developed and injected into the economy.
Nigeria's educational system is not exactly well. The primary and secondary schools have decayed and decaying infrastructure and the quality of teachers has waned remarkably. In the tertiary sub-sector, the quest for admission is a life-long activity for many. Some have done well both in the UME post-UME and yet have not been admitted because there is no space. A number of questions come to mind whenever we talk about this sector. One on my mind is funding. Though a member of UNESCO, Nigeria refuses to commit 26 percent of the annual budget to education. The university system is consequently grossly underfunded and understaffed.Universities are too undercapacitated to absorb all who are qualified by the JAMB standard. The quality of education given to those already in school is debatable. Laboratories are overcrowded so much that sometimes we have students sitting on table tops where materials are to be kept. Fortunately, those materials are not there in the first place. Those standing outside can not see or hear the lecturer. Yet some of them will become the engineers that build our bridges and houses. They also have to contend with those who extort all sorts of illegal levies. Since the universities can not cater for all qualified candidates, the selection of courses is done with no consideration for talent. What we have then is that people who should be trained as scientists are lost to the suffocation of corruption, while those with no business in the sciences have hijacked the courses and all they think about is how they will make money. If government were committed to education, it would develop a policy that meets specific national manpower needs. This would stop us from producing excess of what we do not need when we lack certain personnel.
The point here is that without education, we can not achieve Vision 20:2020 or any vision at all. If all we do at this time is to praise ourselves for building the roads we haven't built, we deceive ourselves. This vision is not the return of Christ which will happen whether we work towards it or not. Where education is well funded, researches are done. Researchers can develop yam varieties that can be planted in the morning and harvested in the evening. This is food security. In addition, we can export to earn income. The people trained in good schools would have ideas to create jobs and reduce unemployment. They would also pay taxes to the state. So I do not see any harm in funding the educational system. Think of it. Today industries have folded up and most jobs available are unproductive political appointments that do not grow the economy in any way. Countries like Iran are truly independent. Western sanctions have little impact on Iran's nuclear activities because the people working there are Iranians. They were born, educated in Iran and are therefore not only working in Iran but also for Iran. Here our future scientists are on their own scavenging on a rotten system.
The graduates from our schools demand jobs and because there are none in an economy that is not working, we decide to appoint them Personal Assistant to the Personal Assistant to the PA to the PA to the. . . They milk the oil money dry and return nothing to the economy. So how can the economy grow let alone becoming one of the twenty biggest even in the next fifty years?
Finally, if Nigerian leaders mean to achieve the vision, they must stop paying lip service to the educational system. We can improve the security system and reduce corruption for the economy to grow. But education must be well funded and purpose-driven for Nigeria to attain any economic goal.
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Good article.good analysis.well done!what we are lacking in nigeria is action,that's why we are not seeing result.is action,that's why we are not seeing result.
ReplyDeleteThat's correct. We need action and that's why we are educated. What's the purpose of education? "The main purpose of education is not knowledge but action" (Herbert Spencer). Unfortunately, the Nigerian government fears educated people and so prefers schooled individuals. It gives me headache.
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