POOR STANDARD OF EDUCATION BLAMED ON CORRUPTION AND POORLY EXECUTED POLICIES
Education has been the brain behind the progress of every society owing to its peculiarity in the scheme of things.
In Nigeria, it is an undisputed fact that the nation’s education sector is still struggling to provide efficient and widely accepted standard for its teeming population.
Experts have attributed the situation to poorly executed policies and programmes as well as corruption.
Over the years, various governments have been trying to improve on the standard of education in the country to accelerate the nation’s development.
Unfortunately, the education system is yet to function effectively which experts believe is threatening the country’s chances of accelerated social and economic prosperity.
Appraising the standard of education in the country, an educationist, the Dean, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Godfrey Okoye University Enugu, Professor Onyema Ocheoha said that the education system was below standard going by UNESCO prescription which he attributed to poor budgeting.
Professor Ocheoha who is a former Secretary to the Enugu State Government emphasized the need for government at all levels to make educational objectives as set out in section eighteen of 1999 constitution justiciable.
A one-time Commissioner for Education in the Old Anambra State, Chief Nduka Eya maintained that proliferation of unqualified schools, poor infrastructure, population explosion as well as Governments interference in education had contributed immensely to the falling standard in the system. He called for adequate quality control in the system.
Chief Eya descried the rate universities derailed from their set goals and called for a review of all the institutions.
Before the return of democracy, primary education was the worst hit as many public schools in some states were in dilapidated state with leaking roofs and broken walls.
Some had inadequate desks and chairs compelling pupils to sit and write on bare floor, some under trees and make shift structures.
This has become history in many states. In his submission, the Dean School of Education, Enugu State College of Education Technical, Dr. Chidi Ozochi noted that the intervention of Tertiary Education Trust Fund had paved the way for tertiary institutions to enhance manpower development and social infrastructure.
Dr. Ozochi also applauded the establishment of Universal Basic Education Commission aimed at achieving education vision 2020.
Dr. Ozochi believed that if various Governments should make earmarking of funds for training and retraining of teachers a priority, the people would achieve quality education.
Some residents of Enugu metropolis who shared their views on the level of education in the country maintained that the country must learn to plan its education and implement it with commitment as well as sense of direction for the greater good of all its citizens,
NGOZI NWEKE