The Nigerian Educational System Needs A Total Overhaul -By Emmanuel Bulus Jr.

It was 2020, during the ASUU strike and COVID-19 break.

I had returned home due to the break. Few week later I was invited by a dear friend to attend the La Buena Vida project campaign.

I gladly accepted the invitation. On the day of the campaign (orientation) I went to the venue where we’re to be enlightened about the project.

While waiting for the resource person who will anchor the program. Just to keep us busy, a guy put on the television, he went straight to a channel that was broadcasting the World Economic Forum live. Different speakers spoke, on different subject matters.

The point that caught my attention was said by Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, when he was given time to speak.

He said, “…we must teach the next generation to perform the tasks that technology cannot do. We must also focus on building skill-set appropriate for an automated world where humans will add value through imagination and vision….”

Thrilled by what he said, I quickly jotted down this statement in my diary.

You see, I have always believe that Nigerian education system will change, but I have come to realize that there are fundamental problems that needs to be addressed first.

Our education system in Nigeria is too rigid and standardized and the inevitable result is that, students expect and even demand to be spoon feed by the teachers. Of course, the advantage of having a rigid and standard system of education is that, it helps give certain uniform quality.

However, the disadvantages are more, to mention few. It will programme students to learn in a predetermined way. As everything they students are taught will be merely reproduction of knowledge in an examination.

No wonder in most of our higher institutions (especially the government institutions) today, students want to know which pages of which text book they must read to succeed. And these pages should directly match with lectures. Otherwise there are complaints. Most importantly, they want to know the kind of question to expect during exams.

Stated bluntly, they demand to be told what and how to think. Students in Nigeria no longer see education as the cultivation of life enhancing abilities, but as a quick means of getting necessary credentials to enter the market place.

And just to be clear, the Students are not to be blame for this. It’s a natural consequences of how the government have paid no or little effort in the growth of our whole education system.

So, before we can arrive at Jack Ma’s exciting new world of creativity oriented education, the government must ensure that the process of learning is not anchored on rigid and standard processes that takes the flexibility out of education. The teachers must also be deliberate toward helping the next generation how to self learn.

As this is particularly important in today’s digital and fast-changing world where information is readily available, new technologies are amplifying each other and unknown opportunities and challenges emerge at an unprecedented rate.

Therefore this calls for a total overhaul of our education system to catch up with the digital and fast changing world.

EMMANUEL BULUS JR, is a Law graduate at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He can be reached via,
emmanuelbulus801@gmail.com or 08131052299