Changing Trends of Nigeria's Educational Sector – My Assembled

1 REDEEMER’S UNIVERSITY, EDE CHANGING TRENDS OF NIGERIA’S EDUCATIONAL SECTOR – MY ASSEMBLED COGNITION A Valedictory Lecture By PROFESSOR LAWRENCE BABATOPE KOLAWOLE B. Sc, PhD (Physics), PhD (Theology), FSAN , FNIP , HON . FNIST VALEDICTORY LECTURE No. 1 November 23, 2017 Educated men are as much superior to uneducated as the living are to the dead.- Aristotle Education is a sign of freedom. Only the educated are free. - Epictetus Education is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor and ornament to the rich. - Diogenes What sculpture is to a block of marble education is to the soul. - Addison. Without education, man is a splendid slave, reasoning savage. - Anonymous The Chairman, The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, The Vice-Chancellor, Eminent Members of the Governing Council, Honourable Members of Senate, 2 HRM Oba Munirudeen Adesola Lawal, Lamisa I, the Timi of Ede, Other Principal Officers of the University, Deans of Colleges, Directors of Units, Heads of Department, Members of the University Community, Distinguished Guests, Gentlemen of the Press, Ladies and Gentlemen, My teaching career has turned out to be a full-circle marathon, the beginning and end of which is the serene town of Ede. I earned the first salary as a secondary school teacher at Timi Agbale Grammar School, Ede in June 1962 and I’ll, by the grace of God, earn the last as a professor at the Redeemer’s University, Ede in December 2017. I was a French teacher at Timi Agbale and a Physics teacher at the Redeemer’s University. I lived at Ojularede Street and I am ending up Akoda village. How times fly! Mr. Chairman, I gave my Inaugural Lecture at the Federal University of Technology, Akure in March, 1988. I thank God for seeing me through to give a Valedictory Lecture at the Redeemer’s University in November 2017 as I bow out of active public service. Before I quit the stage, I believe I owe it a duty to bequeath to the next generation the benefits of my experience in the system. For apart from my consummate belief in God, the only other thing I am passionate about is education. 3 Therefore, my most respected Chairman, a convenient point to start this discourse is to define education. Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, and direct research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, but learners may also educate themselves. Education can take place in formal or informal settings and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels or acts is considered educational. The methodology of teaching is called pedagogy. As we would see, Ladies and Gentlemen, education is a must for every human being. Our gathering here today has been made possible by no other thing than education. Education has been recognized as a basic human right since the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Education is a sine qua non for development. No nation can thrive beyond the educational level of her citizenry. Neither can an individual prosper beyond the level of his or her applied knowledge or wisdom. Even the law affirms that a person who has lost his or her mind is not fit to be counted as a citizen. Education is commonly divided formally into such stages as preschool or kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and then college, university, or apprenticeship. For nearly seven decades I have been a passionate stakeholder in the Nigerian education system either as a pupil, student, lecturer, or professor. As I bow out of formal involvement in the system I see myself the same way Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical physics, saw himself at old age – a person at the seaside, picking shells; as the water recedes , he kept on seeing bigger and prettier shells; even as he became tired, he was seeing bigger and more beautiful ones. He gave up and made 4 do with the ones garnered thus far. The process is not reversible. Even if life is re- livable, I can only go through it again through a completely different trajectory. The quotations above by Aristotle and others , encapsulates the undeniable fact that at its most basic level, education is important because it gives people the baseline skills to survive as adults in the world. These skills include basic literacy and numeracy, as well as the ability to communicate complete tasks and work with others. Education is essential for nearly every type of job or career, and in many cases, education makes the difference between being able to perform a job safely and accurately and being unable to perform a job at all. However, many people believe that education is important in life for reasons beyond basic survival skills. Eleanor Roosevelt, a former president of the United States of America famously said that education is essential to good citizenship and that education is important to life because it enables people to contribute to their community and their country. Others believe education is important because it helps to answer life's big questions, including questions of how to live, work and love. Still others believe that education is important because it teaches people about the world around them. In summary, I have no illusions at all that whatever way one looks at it, education is an enduring legacy that a parent must bequeath to his or her children. Education in Nigeria is more of a public enterprise that has witnessed government complete and dynamic intervention and active participation. It is the view of the formulated education policy in Nigeria to use education as a vehicle for achieving national development. Education being an instrument of change, our education policy has been a product of evolution through series of historical developments. 5 The classification of Nigerian education as elementary, middle and higher is credited to Mr. E.H. J. Hussey who in 1930 made the three-level educational classification 1, although the higher level of education was referred to as “vocational training”. This was basically for professional assistants. This level of education had Yaba Higher College as its first institution. It was established by the then colonial government and her first intake was in 1932. The students were trained in different post-secondary courses leading to professions such as medical assistants, agricultural assistants, teachers, engineering assistants, administrators, etc. The National Policy on Education in Nigeria was launched in1977.The policy is geared towards self-realization, individual and national efficiency, national unity etc. aimed at achieving social, cultural, economic, political, scientific and technological development. In 1955, the objectives of the policy were broadened to include free primary education among others. The policy has been reviewed from time to time. Until 1984, the structure of Nigeria’s educational system was six years for primary schools, five to seven years for post-primary or secondary schools. I was a prime beneficiary of the education that the missionaries made a major component of their enterprise in the late nineteenth century and for many decades in the twentieth century, before the unwelcomed take-over of schools by the enterprising landlords - state and federal governments. Teachers and pupils were comfortable; salaries were attractive and paid regularly. Primary school teachers were really dedicated. Our teachers had no commercial interest unlike nowadays when teachers hawk goods – food, drinks, cloths and some other goods in the classroom. Government takeover of schools brought in its train the irregular 1 Omuta, G.E.D. (2010). The Place of Private Participation in Higher Education: A Periscope on Private Universities in Nigeria. CPED monograph. (ED) Onokehoraye, Benin City. 6 payment of salaries and teachers had no choice but to find other means of making ends meet. Primary school teachers underwent very rigorous training at two levels of teacher training – Grades III and II - before deployment to schools unlike the present situation whereby the primary and secondary schools are replete with “birds of passage” – young men and women, who got into teaching for the meantime, waiting on the wings for well-paid jobs outside the classroom. It is no gainsaying that there is a significant difference in the performance of trained and untrained teachers: the trained teachers do much better that their untrained counterparts. Products of teacher training colleges had sound education in school governance and curriculum management; this was obviously largely effective in improving the managerial performance of head teachers in primary schools. Those days , the school system was perfectly organized. At the apex of the administrative structure was the District Supervisor who visited schools from time to time. The church vicar was also involved. The attendance register and ‘diary’ were submitted to him every weekend. Conspicuously pasted in every classroom was a template showing the statistics of enrolment – boys and girls, and attendance for each school day. The teacher was therefore able to diligently monitor not only the academic performance of the pupils but also their attendance in class. It was not unusual to find teachers visiting our homes whenever we were ill-disposed. Those days there were no private schools in the country. With the sound education received at the primary level, students from the hinterlands competed favourably with their counterparts in urban areas to secure admission to the elitist institutions like the Government Colleges in Ibadan, Umahia, Ughelli, and the King’s and Queen Colleges in Lagos, Ede and Enugu. 7 It is noteworthy that the year 2017 marks the 62 nd year of the introduction of primary education in Nigeria.

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