- Say pre-election promises on education remain unfulfilled
- NUT, ASUU, others kick against ‘lip-service’ to sector
- We’ve more to offer next term – APC
As political campaigns kick – off across the country in preparations for the 2019 general elections, stakeholders in the education sector have expressed disappointment over what they describe as failed promises being made by the various political parties in the area of education, saying almost all the pre-election promises on reviving the sector, made in the past, remained unfulfilled till date.
In separate interviews with our correspondent on their expectations from the political parties warming up to woo Nigerians for votes in the forthcoming general elections, the stakeholders lamented what they described as the ’lip service’ being paid to the education sector by successive administrations in the country, warning that they were no longer ready and comfortable with the ‘empty’ promises.
According to the stakeholders, despite many promises that were made during the pre-election campaigns in 2015 , the sector had been made worse than before, instead of fulfilling those promises.
Another campaign season is here with us and the candidates have started making the promises like they used to do.
Unveiling his plan for education if he succeeds in winning the governorship election in 2019, Senator Murtala Abdulazeez Nyako, who is the Governorship Candidate of the African Democratic Congress in Adamawa State, said qualitative education is one of his five major targets.
“ When I say qualitative education, I mean sound education that will lead to the empowerment of the beneficiaries,” he said in an interview with The Point.
His Peoples Democratic Party counterpart for the State’s top position, Hon. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, popularly known and referred to as ‘ATM Alert’, also promised to make education one of his priorities, saying he would accord education the desired priority and develop a sustainable students’ support arrangement for both secondary and tertiary tiers of education and also for professional programmes like agriculture, engineering medicine, law and education.
Fintiri, who also spoke with The Point in an earlier interview, said, “ The establishment of model Senior Secondary Schools with full complement of competent teachers, science and technology laboratories, libraries, computer and Information centres will not be left out,” adding “ We will also rationalise Technical and Vocational Centres, Skills Acquisition and Training Centres based on Senatorial Districts.”
Without any iota of doubt, these are really fantastic plans, but the implementation of the programmes had always been the issue with the politicians once they assume office.
Some of the stakeholders who spoke with our correspondent were quick to refer to the 2015 manifesto of the ruling All Progressives Congress on education in which the party admitted the high rate of out of school children , saying this would be stopped while also promising to give out guaranteed free education to Nigerian children.
“Nigeria’s education system is a scandal. There are now 10 million school age children out of school. The APC will seek to increase the proportion of students moving from primary to secondary education and then into the tertiary and university sectors,” the manifesto had read in parts.
“In the past, political manifestos in Nigeria were hardly different from mere platitudes and general statements to which parties could not be held accountable. The manifesto of APC is different. We have clearly stated what we will deliver to Nigeria when elected to office,” the framers of the manifesto had also written, apparently to underscore the party’s seriousness.
The 2015 manifesto for the education sector also promised to, among others, triple education spending over the next 10 years from the then 5% to 24.5%, commit to the eventual eradication of illiteracy by guaranteeing and enforcing nine years of compulsory basic education to every Nigerian child as the minimum level of formal education.
While it promised to give adequate material support to schools, introduce a national core curriculum for all public schools and set out the minimum standards, some material support to schools have been given but the word ‘adequate’ is still questionable in schools as well as the core curriculum.
The party also introduced free daily school meal programme which has been established in some, but not all primary schools, according to the manifesto, however, the APC is yet to begin the free school meal programme in secondary schools as promised.
The party also said that it planned to raise the transition rate from primary to secondary schools to at least 75 per cent by 2019, embark on vocational training, entrepreneurial and skills acquisition schemes for graduates along with the creation of Small Business Loans Guarantee Scheme to create at least 1 million new jobs every year, for the foreseeable future.
But quite unfortunately, most of those promises have not been fulfilled as out-of-school children problem still remain high in the country, according to recent figures released by the United Nations Children Fund, with the Universal Basic Education Commission disclosing that the number of out of school children in the country had risen to 13. 2 million, with APC- governed States such as Bauchi, Katsina, Kano, among others, topping the list of states where the problem is still huge.
It is also sad that under the same administration , both Universities and Polytechnic students throughout the country are currently at home, with the entire system in coma, as their teachers are on indefinite strike over struggle for better funding of the education sector.
Speaking with The Point on the development in the sector, the National President, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Comrade Michael Olukoya, said the sector had not done well under the current administration even as he maintained that he would not want the same to continue in the next dispensation.
“We should realise that education is an investment on its own. If you under-invest, the repercussion will be there on the entire citizens, I am not encouraged with the finance allocation (to the sector). Another issue is the ability of the administration to maintain stability in that sector. All these university teachers’ strike brings about instability. Education is a system, if we do not allow it to grow, the effect will be catastrophic to the entire citizens,” Olukoya told our correspondent.
He also lamented the ineffectiveness of the Government system, saying teachers want a better system and not what they are being offered now.
“If you look at the schools today, you will weep. In some states, students receive lectures under the tree. I was in a state recently during the rainy season, they do not go to school at all because there will be no learning at that time.
“Education is all, all these social vices we are experiencing today is the insensitivity towards adequate preparation of quality education. I do not know the last time teachers were trained and re-trained , both locally and internationally. In this area, the government has not performed well. It shows we are backward. The government that promised public change, it is time for change.”
In the same vein, the Director General, Institute of Chartered Economists, Prof. Christopher Balogun, said it was difficult to say that the Government, generally, has helped the sector.
“It will be hard for anyone to say the Government has contributed to the education sector in Nigeria. Why I say this is because, if you look at what is happening outside the country, you will see that emphasis is always on education, they want to make sure that everyone is highly educated,” he said, adding that the sector in Nigeria was far behind, compared to other countries.
“At least in a family of 10, nine should be well-educated, whether secondary school or university education. The reverse is the case in our own country here. You will enter a community with about a million population and out of this, you will see only 10, 000 people being educated.
“That is the issue, to say Buhari’s administration has contributed more to merit his second term as far as I am concerned, no. I have not seen anything the Government has done, “ Balogun told The Point.
Also, the universities lecturers, under the auspices of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, who are currently on strike, are not happy at the state of the sector, despite all the promises.
The National President, ASUU, Prof. Ogunyemi Abiodun, who spoke to our correspondent, said the public education was in a bad state.
“No public primary school teacher wants his child to go to a public primary school same as public secondary school teachers. Do we want the situation whereby the public universities will be in such state?
“Look at the public primary and secondary schools, we are complaining about the standard of education falling. The rich are even sending their children abroad for primary school, not to say secondary. This is not what we want, ” Abiodun told The Point.
However, the National Publicity Secretary, APC , Lanre Issa-Onilu, has risen in defense of the ruling party, saying the party has more to offer in their current manifesto which is yet to be released.
“We will soon release our manifesto comprehensively, in the next two weeks. We are re- launching the manifesto. As I speak to you, we are working on it, the review of our former manifesto and our successes. They are a lot of special things we have to offer and it will be found in the document when it is released,” Issa-Onilu told our correspondent.
