ABUJA (Sundiata Post) There are obvious pointers to the falling standard of education in Nigeria over the years which, unfortunately, have remained ignored. While most employers of labour relied on paper qualifications, it became glaring that expectations and output from the employees did not match their issued certificates. This has prompted these employers to establish in-house INTENSIVE REMEDIAL PROGRAMMES for such employees in order to retain them in their workforce. But we need to address the factors contributory to this continued fall in standards.
Over the years there have been concerns about the flaws in the admission system, the extortion via commercialisation of teaching/learning materials, the general lackadaisical attitude of students to learning, and most unfortunately, the inability of these institutions to carry out internal cleansing of the prevalent moral decadence perpetrated by the teaching staff.
Thanks to technology and the internet for letting the whole world appreciate the enormity of this decadence and its consequent harm on education by way of the recently released lurid conversation between a student and her professor which has since gone viral. Many will admit that such practice has been going on over the years, with the authorities and even the vibrant strike-hungry unions looking the other way.
This is the time for all to sit up and ensure that marks and grades are merited through hard work and not through monetary or amoral favours. Of course here we must recognise that there are innocent victims and also willing collaborators among these students. We have heard of some pretty female students who reject sexual advances of teachers who then get victimized and blackmailed into submission. There are stories of lazy female students who should not have even gained admission into these institutions in the first place, who willingly offer themselves to lecturers in order to secure grades and acquire non-merited certificates. What about stories of absentee female students, from affluent homes, who can afford to be in Dubai for shopping rather than in lecture rooms for learning and who compromise themselves one way or the other to obtain grades. A fourth group of female students, the “Born Again” who disguise themselves by appearing unattractive, these are despised by the randy teachers and they therefore accept their fate irrespective of the level of harassment or victimization.
As for the male students the lazy ones may join cults to intimidate and harass the authorities into awarding them grades. When they feel like not taking examinations they end up causing disruption of academic activities. Some others resort to recruiting female students for randy lecturers in exchange for grades and so on. All these despicable practices in our tertiary institutions have been ignored for too long and little wonder these tertiary institutions gradually have lost their sense of focus and direction. Must we continue to play the ostrich? Quality education must be predicated on a combination of both committed professionally trained teachers and enthusiastic and hard working focused students.
Thefore this Government, the Education ministry and indeed the NUC should see this revelation from OAU Ile-Ife as a wake up call to sanitide these institutions and save our education standards from further downward trend.
*Source: Facebook