The imperativeness of re-assessing the quality of nigerian educational system

Asia/Nigeria/thechronicleofeducation.com/

Resumen: Nigeria se ha ganado la designación del Gigante de África por el buen valor del tamaño, la población y sus vastos recursos. Sin embargo, el lamentable estado de la infraestructura, el bajo nivel de educación, la erosión del sistema de valores, la falta de buena gobernanza y muchas otras tribulaciones prevalecientes en la sociedad nigeriana han causado que el país pierda rápidamente el respeto en la esfera.Es preocupante que mientras algunos países han reconocido el valor de invertir fuertemente en educación como un vehículo para un crecimiento irremediable y una economía robusta, las prioridades de Nigeria todavía se encuentran en la lucha contra la corrupción, sosteniendo un sistema excesivamente costoso de gobierno y seguridad nacional.

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Nigeria has earned the designation of the Giant of Africa by good worth of Nigeria’s size, population and vast resources. However, the pitiable state of infrastructure, low standard of education, erosion of our value system, lack of good governance and many other tribulations prevalent in Nigerian society has caused the country to be fast losing the respect across the sphere.

It is worrying that while some countries have recognised the value of investing heavily in education as a vehicle for irremediable growth and brawny economy, Nigeria’s priorities are still found in fighting corruption, sustaining an excessively expensive system of governance and national security.

Nigeria is blessed amply with all the resources to be the best in all ramifications but yet the educational system is in shambles just because it is a product of the Nigerian structure where in most cases normal things are abnormal and abnormal things normal. The stakeholders in our educational system which includes the government, teachers, administrators, parents, students and the society all have a share of the blame due certain action or inactions.

The function of the family as an institution has been eroded and people fail to realise that children’s exposure to cultural norms determines their level of conformity. The society no longer questions any process but accepts the product no matter how ethically erroneous or terrible they appear, merit and hard work are not longer acknowledged and rewarded but rather easy access and admiration to fraudulent wealth, culture of disorder and defective value system is gradually becoming the order of the day.

A lot of factors seem to be playing a negative role towards improving the quality of the educational system; prominent among the identified influencing factors includes Government disappointing investment in education signified by financial crises between staff and management or government, which often degenerate to various reactions such as strike action.

Another reason for low quality standard in the education system is shortage of teaching staff leading to very high staff-student ratio and overcrowded classrooms resulting in work overload, ineffective instructional delivery, poor supervision, examination malpractices etc thereby affecting quality of instructional process and output. The poor state of facilities which is evidence of poor funding in many schools in Nigeria is not cheering.

Apart from shortage of these amenities many of the available ones either obsolete or in deplorable conditions thereby hindering the achievement of the intended educational goals. The interlink between politics and the society prompts the government at all levels in Nigeria to invests some resources in education so as to control quality and quantity of output from the system. This gesture intends to maintain standard and uniformity in all aspects of education.

To this end, the relevance of quality assurance in the education system which provides a framework for shaping the focus of educational administrators to specific areas of needs, enables continuity in standard of service of any educational system, building quality control mechanism into educational administration Nigeria should be strengthened.

Persistent insecurity remains a social menace that resulted from the weak institutions and social organisation within the country, it is appalling that even with the current security challenges that has led to the kidnap of some school girls so many  schools are still operational without a perimeter fencing thereby exposing the learners and learning facilities to danger and security threats.

In other to improve quality of the educational system the essential factors and actors required to facilitate good policy implementation, quality school administrative practise, effective teaching-learning process, proper accountability mechanism and regular evaluation of educational outcomes needs to be organized and mobilized to the education sector to enhance professional development and expertise.

The funding of the education sector needs to be augmented and should not be left in the hands of the governments alone. Since education is capital expensive; the private institutions and multi-national organizations should play a contributory role in funding education programmes in Nigeria through a robust, workable and beneficial public-private partnership.

Training and development of staff which is as well necessary condition for quality assurance in educational system in Nigeria should be accorded the right attention. Similarly, Provision of more physical facilities and supporting facilities would go a long way to enhance quality administration of learning institutions.

In addition, regular monitoring, supervision and evaluation of educational programmes and processes will assist in identifying lapses in implementation process and equally guide in employing the appropriate remedial measures to improve service delivery and educational outcome. Community participation in the administration of schools should be encouraged so as to foster a harmonious school-community relationship that will enhance the security of learners and learning facilities.

It is hoped that confronting the problems affecting the education system promptly will to a large extent assist in setting up the remedial strategies that will confidently modify the value system and re-model education administration towards meeting the aspiration of the nation to build a veritable standard of education with quality and acceptable products.

In other words before we complain that our school products are not employable, we must confirm if our learning environments are all right, if our evaluation processes are reliable, if our teachers are well trained and committed, if our investment in education is rational and whether our schools are universally acceptable.

© 2018, The Chronicle of Education. Permission to use parts of this article is granted provided that www.thechronicleofeducation.com is properly acknowledged.

Fuente: http://thechronicleofeducation.com/2018/07/03/the-imperativeness-of-re-assessing-the-quality-of-nigerian-educational-system/