Education sector in 2006: Not all gloom?
Asks Edith Bolokor
The year 2005 was quite a turbulent one for the Federal Ministry of Education. It witnessed a scandal of monumental proportion that shook not only the National University Commission (NUC) and the ministry but also the National Assembly. The scandal claimed the scalp of the Minister of Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji and the Senate President, Adolphus Wabara.
So in 2006, it was evident that the ministry needed a lot of sunshine. Good enough, it had a new minister Mrs Chinwe Obaji and things seemed sunny and bright with reforms like post-UME, to be conducted by various tertiary institutions, to up-grade the standard of graduates the country produces.
But soon, dark clouds began to form again. The logjam in negotiations between the government and ASUU which had lingered since 2001 reared up its head again as government failed to reach an agreement with the union over the sack of over 49 UNILORIN lecturers whom the union demanded should be re-instated.
The differences between the two parties caused some furore as the year went on and even as 2006 rolled away, the thorny issue remained unresolved.
There were also attempts to put the Universal Basic Education (UBE) on a fast track but some of the suggested reforms grounded to a halt, due largely to lack of information and proper handling of the sector, some observers said.
In no time, education minister Obaji was sacked and a new minister took charge of the ministry's sail. Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili came with some intimidating credentials. She had been abroad for some years before coming home to help put together the project better known as ``Due Process''.
The process is a global best practice of holding institutions and organisations accountable, to ensure fairness and transparency in government business, including contract awards and implementation.
Before taking the helm of affairs at the ministry, Ezekwesili had made a brief stop at the Ministry of Solid Minerals where she tried out some innovations, including trying to brand the ministry and introduce a new logo.
Reforms
Thus, on arrival at the Ministry of Education, she moved very quickly to stamp her authority and rush through some reforms, which invariably triggered their own controversies.
At the peak of the controversies was the issue of the unity schools and the argument that they said should be privatised or improved with a public/private participation model because the minister believed that the government was spending too much funds on 102 federal schools in the country without getting the desired results.
``Our greatest concern is the fact that the ministry spends an inordinate amount of time and resources on these schools that constitute only three per cent of the secondary schools in the country.
``Out of 6.4 million secondary school students only 120,718 are in the 102 Unity schools and this number cannot on any account justify the disproportional amount of staff and budget allocated to these schools,'' she was wont to argue.
The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCS) the union representing workers in the unity schools reacted swiftly and embarked on a nationwide strike.
The strike was in protest against claims that the government had decided to auction the schools and their property.
The strike was on for four weeks until government's public declaration that the schools will not be privatised. Mr. Solomon Onaghionon condemned the decision saying that the sale of the schools is retrogressive, provocative and self-serving.
In his reaction, the former chairman of the National Parents-Teachers Association, Chief Babs Animashaun, said that to privatise the schools would not augur well for the country's education.
``To put the country secondary school level in the hands of the private sector will be a risk too big to take as these schools might not get to the hands of educationists, he said.
Government denied this, clarifying that its interest was in making the schools functional and result-oriented. It reeled out statistics that showed failure rates and degeneracy of the schools.
Another controversy emerged as 2006 gradually wore on. A proposal to merge examination bodies like National Examination Council (NECO) and West African Examination Council (WAEC) met with stiff opposition from stake holders including the labour unions. What emerged from the intention still remains to be seen in the future.
As the issue boiled, yet another issue struck in the conversion of some polytechnics and schools of technology into universities. Questions trailed the policy leaving many observers of the education sector wondering if it was well thought out.
For one, why were polytechnics established in the first place rather than only universities?
If polytechnics become varsities what are the implications for the sector and the country? Some even argued that if the problem was simply one of the alleged discrimination against graduates of polytechnics, then why not, squarely address this rather than seek to surreptitiously introduce it by re-branding polytechnics as varsities?
Flip side
It was however not all gloom for the sector in 2006 because on the flip side many successes were chalked up by the ministry as it strives to make the country one that is knowledge-driven.
Firstly, the ministry successfully organised the 53rd session of the National Council of Education (NEC) summit bringing together major stakeholders.
According to her the repositioning of the federal ministry of education to ensure that it is efficient and well focused was one of major priorities.
Some of the reforms embarked by the ministry included the nine-year Universal Basic Education (UBE) which was to provide access to quality education for all, irrespective of the recipient's social background, geographical location or gender.
``The nation's education is in crisis and if the situation is not arrested, the country's vision to be among the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020 would be a mirage'', was one of her many refrains about the situation in the sector.
The minister restructured and strengthened the inspectorate department of the ministry. The department which is critical in the quest for high standards had hitherto been moribund. She re-organised and repositioned it to able to monitor schools for the purpose of solving the problem of dwindling education standards.
Ezekwesili said that to meet the needs of a globalised world, the quality of the nation's human capital must be upgraded. It is, therefore, for this reason that the ministry took a leadership position in charting a new path for the sector through its numerous reform initiatives.
The new initiatives, she noted, would see the public sector, civil society and private sector collectively playing significant roles in the sector.
Nonetheless, some of the initiatives did not fare very well. For instance, Ezekwesili's efforts at repositioning the nation's tertiary institutions work efficiently through a system wide programmes audit undertaken by the NUC did not record the expected results.
The NUC stressed that the commission, who should know at any given time the exact number of programmes in the university system, could not do so because of the unaccredited full or part time programmes being run by some universities or their unapproved affiliated campuses.
The commission had since asked some of the universities shut-down their affiliate campuses or face sanctions. It was clear that if such an audit failed, the result could lead to the system's total collapse and make effective planning and monitoring of the university system difficult, according to Prof. Julius Okojie.
Stakeholders, however, have urged the government at all levels to invest largely in the education sector from pre-primary to tertiary level if the country's human capital is to rank among the best in the world.

(NAN Feature)