The way and manner in which the standard of education is falling in Nigeria call for concern.
It is worrisome that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been embarking on strike times without number across the country.
Yet the government has not been able to resolve the grey area causing the strike action.
This is because the system is not working to address this frequent strike issue once and for all.
According to guardian.ng, education remains the bedrock of any nation. No nation can grow fast if education continues to receive less attention from the government.
The causes of educational decay in Nigeria could be attributed to so many factors which include: poor teaching facilities, unqualified teachers, corruption, poor funding and shortage of manpower.
Most of the government established tertiary institutions in Nigeria have poor teaching facilities.
A class that suppose to accommodate fifty (50) students can be used for one hundred (100) students.
Some students might be force to stay outside the classroom by the window side to receive lectures. Sometimes, the roof of the building will be leaking during raining season.
Learning under such atmosphere condition is very difficult to catch up. This can contribute to students’ failure.
Also, there are inadequate hostel accommodations and poor sanitary system.
Most of the teachers being employed nowadays in public schools are not qualified to teach unlike before where competent teachers were employed based on their teaching skills.
This is because the system has been bastardizing. The students hardly perform well in their academic curriculum in the school due to unqualified teachers.
There are some institutions in Nigeria that does not have adequate instructional materials such as audio and audio-visual, e-library, laboratory equipment and so forth.
These materials are needed to help both students and academic staff for teaching and learning.
But in a situation when the teaching materials are not available, the students may find it difficult to carry out their research work extensively. This is due to inadequacy of teaching materials.
Corruption is another epidemic that has eaten deep into the fabric of Nigerian society.
In the tertiary institutions, some students have been committing their lecturers either by cash or kind.
The essence of this is to get favour from them especially when they perform poorly in the examination hall.
Due to poor funding for research work in higher institutions, academic staffs are hardly train and retrain.
Manpower is another issue affecting the institution. Due to the large number of students’ intake, some academic staff might find it difficult to round off their syllabus before the commencement of the examination.
A lecturer for instance, can be assigned to cover two to three classes in a day.
For this reason, they may end up telling the students to go and study on their own; due to shortage of manpower.
The Nigeria government should make education its first priority by providing teaching facilities across the country.
Employing competent teachers that has teaching skills. provision of adequate teaching facilities that will aid both the students and lecturers in their academic works.
The government should sanitize the system devoid from corruption and other vices.
The students should be encouraged to take their studies seriously, while academic staff should be discouraged from accepting gifts from students in exchange for scores and vis-à-vis.
Besides, the government should increase the budgetary allocation in education; so that there will be adequate funding for academic research work in all the tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Also, provision should be made to engage more teaching staff so as to reduce the workload of other tutors in the institution.
Kadiri Saliu,
+2348052688194
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