CORRECTING THE MESS IN EDUCATION SECTOR.

On a very sad note, in our clime we confuse schooling with education and today we are paying dearly negatively for it. Schooling is different from education, unfortunately for us, we left the most vital and begin to chase shadows. Schooling is the process of being formally educated at a school, while education is the activities of educating or instructing or activities that impart knowledge or skill in an individual. Or better still, education is the Knowledge acquired by learning and instruction.

There is a line of distinction between the two and obvious our policy maker, the player maker and agencies in our educational sector do not know the difference and that is why there is confusion everywhere. The greatest things colonial master gave us is education but today Nigeria has messed up what was given to us. We are not emulating the colonial master in embracing the best practices of education, after we have messed up what they gave to us, instead of us repairing the damage and finding solution, the rich, well to-do, the poor and those in government took their children and wards abroad to obtain quality education, which they know quite well that is what we lack.

Over the years, government is not considering and paying serious attention to the foundation, which is the primary education and imagine when the foundation of a house is faulty, what happened? That is an invitation to disaster. Firstly, we are not having adequately trained and qualified teachers at the primary level, what they teach our children are irrelevant to their demand, time and age. Investment in the teachers that will teach our children in school should be the utmost priority of government. A teach cannot give what he does not have, therefore, to secure the future, its high time we look in the direction of training and re-training the teachers. The curriculum are wrong and we are not delivering values anymore. We must revive the national policy on education the formative years of every child is vital and must not be taken for granted and most importantly, public schools must be well funded.

Solution to our moribund education is not lowering the cut-off marks that JAMB (Joint Admission Matriculation Board)  is embarking on but re-evaluating and improving the standard. Teachers are suppose to be highly intelligent people, reducing the cut-off marks to 150 is an insult on teaching profession.

What is the relevance of JAMB in the life of our nation and our children? JAMB has outlived its functions and relevancy in Nigeria, they only cause confusion for the student and they have succeeded in causing retrogressing harm to our children. The day JAMB died and lost its relevancy was the day schools were allowed to conduct post UTME after students have written JAMB examination. JAMB should be scrapped and the bogus funds spend on JAMB every year should be spent on training, re-training and adequately equipping and improving the teachers. Spent it on redeveloping and remodeling our moribund and declining education standard.

Organisations, institutions and employers of labour are part of the problems and the mess in education sector. In their advertisement, looking for students with two-one, looking for student with 5 year to 7 years of working experience from a newly graduated student, is that not futile?

Where they missed it is that, they should not expect students to study law, marketing, business management, banking, etc and come out from school and automatically become a lawyer, marketer, business manager, banker, etc, without practice, without someone taking him through the practicality of the profession. What we need now is a leader who will prioritize education.

In other developed and advanced countries of the world, CEO and employers sit at the project defense panel of the students and many students got employment without writing any interview and test to get the job.

In the past we used to have international students on our universities but today, all our students are abroad because there is no standard and no value for money paid.