THE PLACE OF EDUCATION IN A CRISIS-RIDDEN NIGERIA

BY
DR. MIKE A. A. OZEKHOME, SAN, OFR, FCIArb, LLM, PhD, LLD

THE PLACE OF EDUCATION IN A CRISIS-RIDDEN NIGERIA*
By
Dr Mike A. A. Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, FCIArb, LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt.

INTRODUCTION
When I received the letter inviting me to deliver this 12th Foundation Anniversary and 10th unbroken Convocation Anniversary lecture of this great university, I was surprised. The surprise graduated to one of shock when, upon further reading of the letter, I discovered that I have also been slated for the conferment on me of the LL.D Doctorate Degree (Honoris Causa) of this numero uno University, at events taking place tomorrow, Friday, 21st October, 2022. I thought it was a joke. But, seeing that the date on the letter bore 19th August, 2022, I felt better; and I convinced myself that it was no “April fool”’s day afterall.
However, my joy escalated and knew no bounds, when I discovered that the letter conveying both honours was personally authored and signed by no less a person than the living prodigy and legend, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN,OFR, CON, FCIArb, LL.D, a man whose lengthy academic and professional qualifications easily form a sentence, if not a paragraph. You must pick up and read his epic biography, “Impossibility Made Possible”, to understand this enigma of a man, who has many positive layers like an onion.
In accepting both honours, I replied with humility as follows:
“I received your above offers with a mixture of genuine humility and puzzlement. Yes, genuine humility and puzzlement at being found worthy of such an unexpected top-notch recognition by unarguably the greatest Nigerian University educator of our time and one of the finest legal minds to have emerged from the African soil. I hereby humbly accept both honours without any hesitation whatsoever. I am indeed very grateful sir. I eagerly look forward to gracing both events, by the grace of God, sir.
Aare, know this now-that no living Nigerian today deserves more respect and accolades than you, considering your incredible and phenomenal landmarks in life. It is merely stating the obvious, as you are indeed a living legend. You have single-handedly set the bar of visible performance and become the benchmark and standard for measuring legal practice and quality university education in Nigeria, nay Africa, today.
Your University is not only miles ahead of others as the numero uno University in Nigeria and one of the top 300-400 Universities in the world, as recently attested to by the highly respected TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION IMPACT RANKINGS, but, you as an individual, are indeed head and shoulders above them all in terms of private entrepreneurship.
So, for your esteemed self and the Senate of your University to have deemed me fit and proper to be accorded such uncommon double honours is, for me and my family, simply remarkable and spectacular. For this, I will remain eternally grateful to you, sir”.
I stand firmly by these words. I thank you sir. I thank the Governing Council and the Board of Trustees.
THE LECTURE PROPER
THE PLACE OF EDUCATION IN A CRISIS-RIDDEN NIGERIA
I feel particularly challenged on this unique topic going by your kind words in your subsequent letter accepting my reply when you wrote of and concerning me, “with your antecedent, pedigree and particularly, your love for a prosperous and crisis-free Nigeria, it will not be difficult for you to prepare a one-hour lecture titled “The Place of Education in a crisis ridden Nigeria”. Surely, the audience will be of benefit from the solutions you are likely to proffer”.
So, Aare and Compatriots, here we are. I will do my best not to disappoint you or my idol.

EDUCATION – DEFINITION AND MEANING

DEFINITION
The online medium www.dictionary.com defines ‘education’ as “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life; the act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession; a degree, level or kind of schooling (e.g., university education); the result produced instruction, training or study (e.g. to show ones education); the science or art of teaching; pedagogies”.
Similar definitions are contained in the Longman Online Dictionary , where it is rendered as “the process of teaching and learning, usually at school, college or university; the institutions and people involved with teaching”.

WHAT EDUCATION SIGNIFIES
It is suffices to say that all shades of meanings are implied in the context of this topic.
Education, being the process of giving and receiving systematic enlightenment, could be formal or informal. It could also be in a formal setting (e.g. classes in school); or in an informal setting, (such as in places other than what exists in an academic environment such as the Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado-Ekiti). Education allows for the acquisition or impacting of general knowledge, skills, the powers of reasoning and judgement. Education enables intellectual development and maturity.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION
Our ancestors and forefathers may not necessarily have received formal education in a school setting; they were nonetheless “educated” in folklores, values, ethics and deep knowledge of their environment and ways of life.
So important is education that Malcolm X once described education as “the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”. Indeed, George Washington Carver saw education as “the key that unlocks the golden door to freedom”. Not only did John Dewey believed “education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”; Albert Einstein, insisted that “education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school”. Thus, Einstein, the man who once famously told us that “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, viewed education beyond the mere knowledge acquired in schools. It is what remains with a person – the ideals, ideas, knowledge, ethos, after he forgotten what he was actually taught in school.

CRISIS – DEFINITION AND MEANING
DEFINITION
The word ‘crisis’ also does not require lengthy elaboration for our discourse. The Cambridge Online English Dictionary defines it as “a time of great disagreement, confusion or suffering; an extremely difficult or dangerous point in a situation; a moment during a serious illness when there is the possibility of suddenly getting better or worse”.
WHAT CRISIS CONNOTES
Crisis represents intense distress, pain, difficulty or danger, a time when a difficult or important decision must be made. A crisis is a difficult or dangerous time in which a solution is needed, and very quickly too. Synonyms of crisis are emergency, exigency, pinch, strict juncture, etc.
WHAT THIS TOPIC ASSUMES
This topic therefore right assumes that education still exists in Nigeria, albeit in a crisis-ridden environment. How does it fare in these trying times that actually try men’s souls? That is our duty to unravel today. But, first, a little history.
A SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
According to an online source, afribary.com, “Before the British arrived in the early nineteenth century, there were two major types of education in Nigeria. In the Islamic North, education was strictly religious in nature. In each Muslim community, a mallam drilled children as young as five years old in the teachings of the Qur’an and the Arabic alphabet. During the colonial era, larger cities set up more expansive Islamic schools that included subjects such as math and science. In 1913, these Islamic schools, almost all in the north, numbered 19,073 and enrolled 143,312 students. In the 1970s the government took control of the Islamic schools, but in the 1990s, the schools were allowed to operate independently again. The indigenous system was the second type of education before the British occupation. Students were taught the practical skills needed to function successfully in traditional society. Usually children within two or three years of age belonged to an age-group. Together, they learned the customs of their community and were assigned specific duties around the village, such as sweeping lanes or clearing brush. As the children grew older, the boys were introduced to farming and more specialized work, such as wood carving or drumming. Girls would learn farming and domestic skills. Boys would often enter into apprenticeship-type relationships with master craftsmen. Even in the twenty-first century, this kind of education is common. Formal, Western-type of education was introduced by British missionaries in the 1840s. The Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) started several schools in the mid-1800s. The colonial government gave the church financial aid, but in the early twentieth century the government began building primary and secondary schools. By the time the British combined the northern and southern regions into one colony in 1914, a total of 11 secondary schools were in operation, all but 1 run by missionaries. There were also 91 mission and 59 government elementary schools. Nigeria has made considerable progress in the domain of education. The education system in the country is supervised by the state. There are 27 federal and state-owned polytechnics in Nigeria. The first 6 years of primary education are mandatory in Nigeria.”

EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT
An exposition of the role education can play in addressing the many challenges plaguing the Nigerian Nation implies that the education sector is properly positioned, or is, itself, crises-free, and thus, able to perform that function of addressing the problems. This cannot but be so, because, as we say in law, nemo dat quod non habet- you cannot give what you do not have. Accordingly, the pre-eminent question is: what is the status of education in Nigeria? Is it, itself, crisis-free? Can it be an enabler of the solutions to the myriad of problems besetting us? Alas, I am afraid, the answer is a firm ‘No’. The reasons are not far-fetched or hard to decipher. We shall examine them anon. Suffice it to say that any serious discussion of the place of education in a crisis-ridden Nigeria, must start by addressing the systemic crisis in the education sector itself.

BEFORE THE CRISIS AND CHALLENGES IN THE EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
In this regard, it is no exaggeration that the 9-month long (and still counting) of industrial action by University lecturers (ASUU) is but symptomatic of the crisis which has been plaguing our educational sector for at least the past 40 years. From a time since political independence in 1960 to about two decades afterwards, Nigerian education – with the benefit of hindsight – never had it better. Teachers were well-trained and motivated. School environments were clean and well kept. Educational institutions were better funded and equipped; and students were, on the whole better behaved and disciplined. Industrial actions by staff were relatively rare. The school handbook which showed dates of resumption of schools, holidays, examinations and ends of sessions were religiously kept.

The yawning mismatch between the excellence of products of Nigerian education institutions and the then decent environment which produced them has been well-documented.

SOME OF THE IDENTIFIED PROBLEMS
OUT-DATED CURRICULAR AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DECAY: LACK OF QUALITY EDUCATION
One of Nigeria’s most pressing educational issues is the lack of access to quality education. Whether it’s about college essay writers or any other field, it always ends up the same. Because of this, Nigeria is trailing behind other African countries due to innovation, growth, prosperity, and access to information. Many a time, Nigerian universities and students use obsolete and out-of-date textbooks and lab equipment. It is sad to observe that as against nations, including South Africa, Germany, Canada, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, most Nigerian instructors are actually illiterate on ICT matters. They lag behind their global school compatriots, even on publications and journals.

TOTAL NEGLECT OF SCHOOLS
Total neglect by the government has led to the demise of many schools in the last 4 decades. Our academic institutions are in utter disrepair. Students who graduate from them aren’t given the skills they need to compete globally. Many institutions lack basic science equipment, while those that pretend to have, are still using outdated ones. Students are thus solely exposed to the mere academic aspects of their course of studies rather than the hands-on activities.
DEARTH OF QUALIFIED TEACHERS
Aside the hydra-headed technical difficulties most of the universities are also in crises because they only rely on foreign and government subventions, for sedans and upkeep. They now troop abroad for better salaries. Online education in sub Saharan Africa is also affected because professors who could have stayed back to teach online programs now live abroad. Yet, the population number of students keeps growing hugely day by day (Adeyinka, 2013). In Nigeria, for instance, we have many online universities, but no qualified teachers are available to efficiently teach the courses.
Notes (Adeyinka, 2002), it is interesting to note that a few decades after the publication of the Phelps-Stokes and Advisory Committee Reports, particularly after World War II, slight adjustments were made in schools’ curriculum which was slightly oriented towards African life. But the progress in this direction was not remarkable, for as late as the 1960s, education in African schools, particularly in Nigerian Universities, was still “too literary, not practical, not adapted to the needs of a developing agricultural nation,” (Adeyinka, 2002). The strong words of Ajayi and Obidi (2005)
TEACHERS’ POOR WORKING CONDITIONS
The poor working conditions, poor remuneration and allowances teachers are subjected to have discouraged capable and qualified teachers from taking up teaching jobs. Many of them apply for other better paying jobs, even as drivers, while some migrate abroad in drones. This leads to low level of dedication as they are always on the lookout for greener pastures.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDING BY GOVERNMENT
Financing is the most pressing issue in the educational industry. Not just in Nigeria, but globally. It discourages educators and students to fight for grades. Nigeria’s education budget is greatly meagre and much lower than the 26% recommended by the United Nations. Education has become one particularly difficult industry to navigate. The educational sector, which has a greater impact on society, does not receive the type of attention due to it. The 2022 budget for education which stands at 5.4% of the total budget has been faulted by UNICEF ought to have been N1.14 trillion naira, representing 8.4%. With a miserly 470 billion just proposed for universities and other tertiary institutions in the 2023 budget, the sector is in more dire straint.
FAILURE TO ACCOMMODATE THE RISING POPULATION DEMANDS
The total population of Nigeria as at independence was 45.2 million. As at October 6, 2022, Nigeria’s population was estimated to be 217.66 million. This has become a major problem as the education system cannot fully enroll its rapidly growing population. For instance, Nigeria’s basic education sector is overburdened by strong population growth. In 2015, the country’s population under the age of 15 was about 44 percent. The system has failed to integrate large parts of this growing youth population.
As at today, Nigeria’s under-5 population is 31 million children. At least 7 million babies are born each year. The poverty level of Nigeria is one in three. 22% of Nigeria’s population is made up of children. Over 20 million children are out of school as at 1st September, 2022 (UNESCO). No one bothers about the almajiris, drops-out, nomadic migrants and pastoralists; poor children of farmers, fishermen, etc. they are part of the forgotten vulnerable of the society – the hoi polloi; the Frants Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth”.
According to the United Nations, 8.73 million elementary school- aged children in 2010 did not participate in education at all, most of which were the almajiri children. They constitute the largest group of out-of- school children in Nigeria. These boys are sent to Qur’anic teachers to receive an Islamic education, which includes vocational or apprenticeship training. Some are involved in street begging. The Ministry of Education estimated that there were over 9.5 million almajiri children in the northern part of the country in 2010, making Nigeria the country with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. The net enrollment rate at the elementary level was 63.8 percent compared to a global average of 88.8 percent. This low rate of enrollment to basic education in Nigeria has further increased illiteracy level in Nigeria. The country in 2015 had a youth literacy rate of 72.8 percent and an adult literacy rate of 59.6 percent compared to global rates of 90.6 percent and 85.3 percent in 2010 respectively (data reported by the World Bank). The non-literate population is no doubt alarming.
THE FACTOR OF GREED
Greed has crept in as a major issue in Nigerian education because most instructors are paid far less than what they deserve. Thus, the heads of these schools frequently embezzle part of the money for themselves instead of using it for the earmarked purpose. This forces lecturers to milk parents and pupils dry of funds, to survive.

HOW HAVE WE SO FAR FARED?
According to a popular online source, British Nobel laureate, Dorothy Hodgkin, once noted that the University of Lagos was one of the world centres of expertise in her specialist field of chemical crystallography. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, had the first world class computer centre in Africa. The University of Ife (now OAU), had a notable pool of expertise in nuclear physics. Our premier University of Ibadan had an international reputation as a leading centre of excellence in tropical medicine, development economics and historical sciences.

“The Saudi Royal family used to frequent UCH for medical treatment in the sixties. The engineering scientist, Ayodele Awojobi, a graduate of ABU Zaria, was a rather troubled genius. He tragically died of frustration because our environment could not contain, let alone utilize, his talents. Ishaya Shuaibu Audu, pioneer Nigeria Vice-Chancellor of ABU Zaria, collected all the prizes at St. Mary’s University Medical School, London. His successor in Zaria, Iya Abubakar, was a highly talented Cambridge mathematician who became a Professor at 28 and was a notable consultant to NASA.

Alexander Animalu was a gifted MIT physicist who did work of original importance in superconductivity. His book, Intermediate Quantum Theory of Crystalline Solids, has been translated into several languages, including Russia.
Renowned mathematician Chike Obi solved Fermat’s 200-year old conjecture with pencil and paper, while the Cambridge mathematician, John Wiles, achieved same with the help of a computer working over a decade. However, after the harsh environment of the 1980s and IMF/WB structural adjustment programmes, the Ibrahim Babangida military dictatorship undertook massive budgetary cutbacks in higher education. Education started nose-diving.
THE EXODUS
Our brightest and best fled abroad. Today, Nigerian doctors, scientists and engineers are making massive contributions in diverse fields in Europe, Asia, North America and the Arab world. Philip Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Award for his work in super-computing. Jelani Aliyu designed the first electric car for American automobile giant, General Motors. Olufunmilayo Olopede, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, won a McAurthur Genius Award for her work on cancer.
Winston Soboyejo, who earned a Cambridge doctorate at 23, is a Princeton engineering professor, laurelled for his contributions to materials research. He is Chairman of the scientific Advisory Board to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Washington University biomedical engineering professor Samuel Achilefu, received the St. Louis Award for his invention of cancer-seeing glasses that is a major advance in radiology.
Kunle Olukotun of Stanford did work of original importance on multi-processors. National Merit laureate, Omowunmi Sadik of State University of Binghamton, owns patents for biosensors technology. Many young Nigerians are also recording stellar performances at home and abroad. A Nigerian family, the Imafidons, were voted “the smartest family in Britian” in 2015.
Anne Marie Imafidon earned her Oxford Masters’ in Mathematics and Computer Science when she was only 19. Today, she sits on several corporate boards and was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to science. Recently, Benue State University mathematician Atovigba Michael Vershima is believed to have solved the two centuries old Riemann Conjecture that has defied giants such as Gauss, Minkowski and Polya.
Another young man, Hallowed Olaoluwa, was one of a dozen “future Einstein” awarded postdoctoral fellowship by Harvard University. He completed a remarkable doctorate in mathematical physics at the University of Lagos, at age 21. While at Harvard, he aims to focus on solving problems relating to “quantum ergodicity and quantum chaos”, with applications to medical imaging and robotics. Another Unilag alumnus, Ayodele Dada, graduated with a perfect 5.0 GPA, an unprecedented feat in a Nigerian University. Victor Olalusi recently graduated with such stellar performance at the Russian Medical Research University, Moscow, and was feted the best graduate throughout the Russian Federation. Habiba Daggash, daughter of Senator Sanusi Daggash recently graduated with a starred rust in Engineering at Oxford University.
Emmanuel Ohuabunwa earned a CPA of 3.98 out of a possible 4.0 as the best overall graduate of the Ivy-League Johns Hopkins University. Stewart Hendry, Johns Hopkins Professor of Neuroscience, described the young man as having “an intellect so rare that it touches on the unique…a personality that is once-in-a-life-time”. There is also young Yemi Adesokan, postdoctoral fellow of Harvard Medical School who patented procedures for tracking spread of viral epidemics in developing countries. Ufot Ekong recently solved a 50-year mathematical riddle at Tokai – University in Japan and was voted the most outstanding graduate of the institution. He currently works as an engineer for Nissan, having pocketed two patent in his discipline.

WE ARE NO LONGER AT EASE
This is only the tip of the iceberg. If our system were not so inclement to talents, we would be celebrating a bountiful harvest of geniuses in all fields of human endeavour. This is why the correlates between our gene-pool and national development are so diametrically opposed, as the night and day. Unfortunately, the success stories mentioned above are the exception rather than the rule. This is because, we are fast becoming a failed state. We are currently miserably below the ladder of progress in the hierarchy of world economics and politics. None of our institutions, except ABUAD, the leading University in Nigeria which also situates within the leading 300 universities come near the top 500 in the World Universities League Table.
The profligacy, graft, bacchanalian and primitive acquisitive instincts of the ruling class (both military and civilian), have undoubtedly arguably contributed to the erosion of our cherished values and the consequent attendant degeneration in the educational Sector. The rot that set in has since ballooned and festered. So bad is the situation that it will not be an exaggeration to characterize it – as depicted in the title of this article – as a crisis. We are surely in a crisis situation.
HOW BAD IS THE EDUCATIONAL CRISIS?
The challenges confronting education in Nigeria are multi-faceted and well-documented. From underfunding to inclement enabling environment, cultism, “blocking”, sales of grades; and everything in between. In parts of the country (particularly in the North-East, North-West and North Central), kidnapping, armed banditry and nascent insurgency have made formal and even informal, Koranic-style (called ‘Islamiyya’) education something of a luxury, the quest for which involves risking one’s life and limb. In the reasonating words of Kenneth Maduagwu, “the intensity of violence in Nigeria poses significant risks for school children. Several places of learning have turned to piles of ruin due to attacks by non-state armed groups. Instances are more prevalent in Nigeria’s northeast zone, where the insurgency has been well over twelve years. In the northwest and northcentral zones, banditry also poses significant threats to education due to large-scale kidnappings at places of learning. In the sourtheast zone, school activities are suspended on Mondays and other designated sit-at-home days by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Ubiquitous terror significantly constrains school enrolment in Nigeria. The country has an out-of-school children problem, estimated at 18.5 million children. The figure is a sharp rise from 10.5 million recorded in 2021. UNICEF links the surge to northeast terrorism and banditry in the northwest and north central regions”.
KIDNAPPING, ARMED BANDITRY AND HERDSMEN MENACE
We have gotten a terrifying situation where armed bandits and kidnappers now hoist flags on Nigerian soil, collect taxes from Nigerians; and give them identity cards and passes. They challenge Nigeria’s sovereignty and suzereignty. Some hold school children hostage and demand from their parents, bags of salt, rice, maize, millet, and beans; baskets of tomatoes, tarodo, tatashe and miango hot pepper. They also demand for jerry cans of palm oil, vegetable oil; Maggie cubes, ugba and other condiments. These are necessary to feed the children of traumatized Nigerians held firmly in their gulag, to keep them alive for payment of enforced ransome. Herdsmen invade homes and farms freely. They kill, maim, rape and pillage. The government appears helpless. If these are not symptomatic of a failed state, then tell me what a failed state is.
UNICEF CORROBORATES
These alarming figures were corroborated by UNICEF itself (the United Nations Internal Children’s Emergency Fund) in a statement to mark the International Day of Education the 24th day of January, 2022.
According to the world body, “In 2021, there were 25 attacks on schools, 1,440 children were abducted, and 16 children killed. In March 2021, no fewer than 618 schools were closed in six northern states (Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Niger and Yobe) over the fear of attack and abduction of pupils and members of staff. The closure of schools in these states significantly contributed to learning losses for over two months”.
While welcoming the Government’s pledge to increase annual domestic education expenditure by 50% over the next two years and by 100% by 2025, UNICEF notes that the 7.7% allocated to the education in the 2022 Budget was way behind the internationally recommended benchmark of 15-20 percent of annual national budgets. The organization described as “tragic” what it called “the high number (35%) of children who make it to a classroom, but never make the transition from primary school to secondary school – thereby cutting offer their changes for a secured future”.
Echoing these deep-seated sentiments, but in more frightening grisly details is policy and leadership expert, Dakuku Peterside, who, in a piece titled, “Nigeria’s education sector crises and a future ruined”, opined that “the biggest challenge we face as a country is not about the challenges of today, but a bleak future staring Africa’s biggest economy and the most populous black nation, in the face (given) the insensitivity of our leaders to the destruction of (the) section that offers us hope to safeguards and recover the future: the educational sector . . . what is frightening is the inability of our policy makers to connect the monumental rot and negligence of the education sector today to our bleak future . . . Nigeria seems to be retrogressing in all aspects of education and skills acquisition. The net quantity and quality of education in Nigeria is comparison to past decades, given our population and economy, is negative. The products of our education system cannot measure against their opposite numbers in India, China or the European Union . . . The loss of confidence in Nigeria’s education is led by the political and other elite class. Over 95 percent of the elite leaders in government, business and technocratic professions are educating their children in tertiary institutions in Europe and the United States. Consequently, there is hardly any serious policy discussion about education in Nigeria . . . Our education sector needs a quantum overhaul that targets its outcomes. We need improvements, starting from primary education, where we see many but-of-school children. Secondary education needs a total overhaul, (given its) declining standards and low attainment in national examinations like NECO and WAEC. The complete collapse of the higher education sector, where workers engage in incessant strike actions, leading to half-baked graduates – who are grossly untrainable and unemployable – needs immediate attention. Education has suffered from insecurity at the basic primary and secondary levels in most parts of the country. The “unknown gunmen” and IPOB agitators have terrorized the South-East and forced a sit-at-home observation on every Monday (of the week). This has affected schools in the five South-East States, where 20% of the time allotted to education is lost each week. Students in the South-East States missed examinations scheduled for Mondays nationally during necessary national examinations like WAEC, NECO and UMTE.
In Sokoto and Zamfara States (in the North-East),public school students did not register for the WAEC exam this year (majorly) because the government did not pay (the requisite fees on their behalf). (Obviously), this indicates retrogression in teaching, learning and examination for certification. In other parts of the North, the uptake of the WAEC examination is minimal, even with some state Governments paying (for exam fees) for the students. Student in Internally Displace person (IDP) camps worry more about survival than getting an education. Government poorly funds government-owned schools and they owe teachers’ salaries. Most government schools in Southern Nigeria are overcrowded and are populated by children from relatively poor backgrounds (who can ill-afford) the private primary and secondary institutions. . . (while) the rich, (upper) and middle classes are largely immune (as they can afford private education both locally and overseas), the widening gap between the haves and the have-not inevitably results in inequality. (This is because) in the past, education was the great leveler, as poor school children often outperformed those from more affluent backgrounds. This engendered a can-do-spirit in the former and inculcated in them the belief that, with hard work, anything was possible.
(With the prolonged strike by lecturers in public universities) students of those institutions idle away at home and sometimes constitute nuisances to their families and communities. Governments at all levels have (failed in their responsibilities in the education sector. This is because) education policies are either not fit-for-purpose or failing to yield the desired results. Educational (standards) monitoring institutions – where they exist – are, at best, moribund. (They exert little or no control over) private educational institutions, whose charges are so high that they eat a sizeable chunk of the incomes of parents.
(Talking of which globally), the recommended average percentage of GDP to total public and private expenditure on education is 5 percent (but this is higher in developed countries). For example, (according to UNESCO) among the 34 OECD countries reporting data in 2015, Norway spent 6.4 percent of its GDP on education, the United States and the United Kingdom spent 6.1 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively. (By contrast, the world body reports that) the figure for Nigeria in 2017 was 0.85 percent of her GDP”