|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IgboNet |
|
The Igbo Network |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
IBU ANYỊ NDANDA The Centrality of Education in Igbo Culture BY PROFESSOR ROMANUS OGBONNAYA OHUCHE B.Sc ( Professor of Education and Director, INTRODUCTION
I have come to perform as an
effective teacher, to speak for teachers and for all of education, to speak to
Igbo and to others in There was professor M. J. C.
Echeruo, who started it all .in 1979, with "Aha mu efule" or a matter
of identity. He stressed the industry and liberty of Igbo of yesteryears and
looked forward to a return to cherished traditions. This call for a return to
endearing traditions was taken up by professor A. Afigbo in the third lecture
in 1981 titled "The Age of Innocence". He recalled how peacefully and
harmoniously the Igbo used to live with their neighbours and indicated that the
said peace is now being threatened by our new ways of doing things. Ten years later in this lecture
titled”Ibu anyị Ndanda “ or "the centrality of Education in Igbo
Culture", I shall ask the Igbo to return to industry and co-operation in
order to contribute maximally' to individual well-being and (a) Education in traditional (b) Main Development in
primary, secondary and tertiary education in (c) "Ibu anyị
Ndanda" case studies; (d) Some current problems and
challenges of Nigerian education; (e) "Ndanda" and
Nigerian education into the 21st century. I now invite you to share my
thoughts and ideas. (a) EDUCATION
IN TRADITIONAL The concept and process of
traditional education. Education is a life experience. In the words of professor
O. Akinkugbe, it should take place from womb to tomb. Agreeing with this I say that
education should start at home, be formalized at school and continue during
the. individual's experience after school. The basic unit of traditional In his outstanding 1984
Ahiajoku Lecture titled "The Focus of Igbo World View”, the late Professor
Ibeakwadalam Nwoga painted a similar picture using concentric circles while
discussing the ideals of Igbo communal life. Individual achievement is to be
encouraged and admired because it contributes to the upliftment of the
existential status of the community. The traditional education of
African youngsters is based on the social structure described as well as on
certain unifying ideals which spring from the polytheistic beliefs of the
peoples of The latter is perceived as
peopled with spirits, some great and others small, some benevolent but all
needing periodic appeasement through the offering of sacrifices. There is in
addition a set of ancestral spirits made up of the dead members of the
community. Events in the world are explained in terms that are not always in
agreement with explanations proffered by modern science. A Sierra Leonean educationist,
the Late Professor V. E. King (1967:2) had stated the basic philosophy of West
African education: The
individual is a member of a family and of a community whose continuity is essential
for the survival of the tribe. This community consists of the living and the
dead, the interdependence of both being recognized by the important places in
society held by medicine-men and intermediaries. The land is the principal bond
of unity, it being ... the begetter of the unborn, the upholder of the living,
the custodian of dead ... It is imperative, therefore, that youth should learn
all this and, especially how he fits into the pattern of life. Many Nigerian educationists,
notably Fafunwa, Ukeje and Ohuche, have observed that, given the basic
philosophy articulated above, the education of the youth was in the past guided
by functionalism. It was a means to an end and not an end in itself. It served
both as a means of preparing each youth for adulthood as well as a means of
inducting him into society. It stressed job orientation, political
participation, social responsibility and spiritual and moral values. Children were expected to learn
correct speech, proper behaviour and the traditions of the ethnic group from
mothers and other relatives. They thus learnt how to cope with their
environment. Through observation, imitation and participation, they learnt to
farm, hunt, cook, fish, play, wrestle, deliver messages, run homes and build
houses. Teachers included all members of the extended family as well as secret
societies for those who benefited from the traditional form of higher
education. Clearly, this type of education was, for the most part, practical,
utilitarian, non-formal and non verbal. (b) GROWING UP IN IGBO CULTURE In 1966 the Institute of
Education of the University of Ibadan released its Number Six occasional
publication titled ”Growing Up in Nigerian Culture" which was the result
of field research undertaken for the Ford Foundation by Dr. N. Uka. The sample
included 360 rural and 360 .urban IIgbo children in the age range of between 51/2
and 151/2 years. It confirmed that among the Igbo people the basic tenets of
traditional African education are practiced. The study also investigated such
other factors as socio-economic variables and growth and development patterns
including emotional, intellectual, motor, physical and social development. The study took comparative data
on Ibibio, Igbo and Yoruba samples and found no significant differences in
intellectual, motor and physical development in spite of differences in
language and traditions. This led to the conclusion that "culturally the
people of While learning to perform motor
activities, the child receives help from the mother, other adults or older
siblings and while learning to talk, stimulation is also provided by these
various groups. By the age of four years each child is expected to be able to
feed himself. Tests of intelligence indicated no significant difference in
performance due to sex while revealing differences in favour of children from
higher socio-economic backgrounds. The Uka study also showed that in physical
measurements boys and girls were about the same up till the age of seven years
when girls would begin to grow taller and weigh slightly heavier. (c) IGBO CHILDREN ON COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT During life long personal
investigations which lasted more than 60 years and which are continuing all
over the world today in spite of the death of the apostle some years ago,
Piaget sparked off and sustained studies on the growth of logical thinking. He
began with the basic position that all organisms, animals and humans alike,
adapt to their environment. But there is a difference. In simple animals such
as the amoeba, adaptation means striving to satisfy basic needs while in the
human being, adaptation involves adjustment to a succession of environments.
What is more, there is a type of organisation which makes adaptation possible.
That organisation is rudimentary in simple organism and increases in complexity
in human beings. Adaptation is viewed as
involving two complementary processes, assimilation and accommodation. The term
assimilation represents the inner organisation of the organism which enables it
to absorb something from the environment and incorporate same into its internal
structures. A simple illustration is that sometime after dinner those
components of the dinner which have been digested become a part of the dinner.
The assimilation of experiences from the environment is similar. On the other
hand the complementary process, accommodation, allows the organism to adjust to
the experiences it is striving to assimilate. Thus, different experiences will
demand the development of different tools for this purpose. This theoretical formulation of
two compensating and Complementary processes coupled with a detailed observation
of his own children enabled Piaget to conclude that there is a fixed and invariable
sequence of stages in the development of thinking through which each person
moves as he grows from childhood to adulthood. Moreover, the various stages in
this sequence are marked by qualitative differences in the manner of thought. I
had discussed these stages in many earlier papers, especially in Ohuche (1986). Earlier, African studies using
Piagetian and neo-Piagetian techniques had been summarized by Ohuche and
Pearson (1974) as well as in the African Child
and his Environment edited by Ohuche and Otaala and published in 1981 by
Pergamon Press as one of African's contributions to the activities of the 1979
International Year of the Child. Among the studies included were three by Dr M.
O. Okonji on the effect of training of the ability of Igbo children to classify
materials and the effects of familiarity on classificatory behaviour. Taken along with some of my
work among the Mende of Sierra Leone, the work of Dr Nancy Ohuche on developing
the horizontal vertical co-ordinate reference system by some Igbo children, the
investigations of Gay and Cole in Liberia and Jahoda in Southern Africa, the
studies of Dr Omari in East Africa and the studies of Dr Dasen in French
speaking Africa, it was now possible to establish an African perspective on
cognitive development. The lesson learnt on the cultural context of thinking
and learning is that children are different, one from another, and that
although intellectual development takes place in stages, these stages appear at
different ages in different children and in different cultural environments.
Environment, heredity and previous learning experiences are variables which
affect times of appearance. Other studies have also been
carried out on Igbo and other children. A major work on Igbo subjects was
undertaken by T. Ama Nwachukwu who in 1979 tested 500 six to ten-year-old
school children on Piaget's concrete operation tasks of classification, number serration,
space and time. He discovered that the norms were about the same as elsewhere but
that urban children had significantly better results than rural children. Some
researchers in other settings have discovered the converse and there is now
reason to believe that the urban/rural dichotomy may in this instance be attributed
to some intervening variables. Ohuche (1973:4) noted that In This sparked off a 1986 study
in which Edwin Obiano was interested, among other things, in finding out to
what extent Igbo children can estimate distance, height, time, and other
measures. He found that non-schooled children performed poorly and were worse
than school children in all the tasks performed. In concluding this section it
may be said that in its original form traditional education among the Igbo
people was in the main out-of-school education. There were no formal schools
but the homes served as congenial "schools" where children did not
have to travel to be educated. Teaching was informal, practical, and
utilitarian and geared to the needs of society. The curriculum was undocumented
and unwritten, but it had to do with the welfare of the individual, the overall
needs of the society and the roles which young persons were to be trained to
fulfill. In the words of the late
Professor D. I. Nwoga (1984: 44) Within
this contest, there is a balance between the claims of community and the claims
of individualism. The individual is s member of the community that sets the
goals that have acceptability 'within that 'community. It is the community that
sets up reward and punishment systems. To a large extent, the individual in Igboland
is subsumed within the requirements of the community. It would certainly have been
nice if the results of the studies on Igbo children referred to in the
preceding were available to traditional African education. But that was not to
be because the studies themselves were part of the transition from traditional
to Western education. 2. MAIN DEVELOPMENTS IN PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND TERTIARY EDUCATION IN (a) PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (i) the missionary/colonial
administration era beginning with the arrival of Thomas Birch Freeman in 1842 and
ending in 1954; (ii) the era of regional autonomy
from 1954 to 1960; (iii) the immediate post-independence
and Pan-African era of the 1960’s; (iv) the policy and programme reform
era of the late 1960's to mid 1970's specifically 1966 – 1975; (v) the present era from UPE to
now. This classification system has
been made here mainly to call it to the attention of the interested scholar.
However, for our discussion the main threads of developments in primary and secondary
education before political independence in 1960, that is a period of about 120
years covering (i, ii and iii above), will be given. Serious Christian Missionary
educational activities started in The When regional autonomy was
achieved in 1950 grants-in-aid by the Central Government were discontinued and
the financing of pre-tertiary education became the responsibility of each
Regional Government. Also Revenue Allocation Formula of 1954 included the principle
of derivation. With this formula, the Central Government and Eastern and
Northern Regionals lost some funds to the Western Region which was buoyant
because of the sizeable revenue derived from cocoa. The most striking point about
education during this period was the high status of the teacher in the society.
Whether he was in a one-room school or in a relatively larger school, in a
Primary school or in a secondary school, he was respected, admired, cherished,
revered and feared. He was a "magister", an adviser to parents and
guardians, a counselor to elders, a disciplinarian, an authoritative member of
the society. He was invariably the chairman at important local functions, the
local aristocrat and a model to be emulated. Some parents kept their children
in check by threatening to report unruly ones to their teachers. In those days,
it would appear that Nigerians knew that persons who supervised the mental
development of their children deserved respect, honour. The teacher, in turn, carried
himself with dignity for the most part. He was responsible, he was disciplined.
Even when he had only little formal education as was the case with the grade
three teacher, he tried to be effective. He was a symbol of what was good in
our society. This was the case until the Nigerian civil war. At independence in 1960 Then the 1968 Nairobi
Conference of African Ministers of Education noted that qualitative important
should be an integral part of educational expansion in all African countries
and made recommendations towards achieving this objective. For Nigeria the -
period between this Nairobi Conference and the 1976 Lagos Conference of
Ministers of Education of African member states of UNESCO fell in our Second
National Development Plan period (1970-74) and the beginning of the Third National
Development Plan period (1976-80). Much more success was achieved with
quantitative expansion than with qualitative improvement, especially at the
primary school level. The national The UPE was initiated under
conditions which indicated that the Federal Government had lots of money. The
Government's commitment to education alone, was put at Then the Okigbo Revenue
Allocation Formula of 1979 reduced the Federal Government's share of the
Federation Account from seventy-one per cent to fifty-five percent (55%) on the
grounds that State and Local Governments which received increased shares would
spend part of their increased shares on primary education. Specifically,
Section twenty-nine of the 1979 Constitution was translated to mean that the
burden of the provision and maintenance of primary education was that of the
States with the proviso that Local Governments would play a participatory role.
Thus, the Federal Government stopped funding primary education. To make matters
worse, the State Governments also withdrew from the funding of primary
education on the grounds that the responsibility was that of the Local
Government. The outcome was chaos as both
funding and management of primary education were grossly inadequate. The system
was on the br1nk of collapse. There was gross shortage of everything except
children. Buildings were in short supply and those that were available were
ill-maintained. Teachers were poorly trained and ill-equipped to teach. In many
parts of the country teachers were owed arrears of salary up to six months. To
save cost in some states, experienced and effective teachers whose salaries
were high were laid off. Standards varied considerably as some local
governments spent as much as eighty per cent (80%) of their budget on primary
education while others diverted even the little money that was available to
other projects. But clearly, there was overall lowering of standards. At the same time, there was the
global economic recession of the late 1970's leading to a decline in It should also be noted that
the National Policy on Education introduced far-reaching reforms at the
secondary level of education. Among other things, introductory technology
equipment and teachers were required at the junior secondary school. Yet, less
than fifty per cent of the states made the transition to the junior secondary
school when it was first due in 1982 and an even smaller percentage made the
transition to the senior secondary school when it was due in 1985. The major issues in relation to
primary education have been summarized on page three of an undated paper to the
thirty-four meeting of the National Council on Education in the following
language: The
recurrent key issue in all the reports is the necessity and extent of Federal Government
involvement in funding primary education (irrespective of constitutional provision),
the modalities of raising adequate fund, and the channels of routing to
appropriate authorities at local government level, such that the target beneficiary
primary schools will be service without the funds being diverted. Many professionals are of the
opinion that the Babangida Administration found a creative solution in 1989
with the birth of the National Primary Education Commission (NPEC). Its
pre-mature death in 1991 is seen as a blow to the development of sound primary
education. Many professionals also see the (B) BRIEF ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN In December, 1990 the
President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria inaugurated a
Commission on Review of Higher Education in Historically, the first
polytechnic, The polytechnics grew rather
slowly from one in 1932 to eight in 1975 through twenty-two during the Third
National Development Plan period to thirty at the moment. On the part of the
Universities, in 1960 the By the time the The advanced teacher training
colleges recommended by the Ashby Commission were initiated in 1962 with five
colleges to cater for much needed middle level manpower for secondary schools.
As they grew in number, they also became transformed to advanced teachers
colleges/colleges of education, and acquired additional responsibility for the
training of primary school teachers. As at August 1991, there were fifty-four
such institut0ions, nineteen there were fifty-four such institutions, nineteen
of which were established and are funded by the Federal Government. These three categories of
tertiary institutions have, by and large, achieved their mission which for all
of them is to teach, provide appropriate public service and execute research in
different degrees. However, it would appear that the polytechnics suffer from
an identity crisis which tends to indicate that their products would rather be
university products and their staff university staff. 3. 'IBU ANYỊ NDANDA' CASE STUDIES Igbo embraced formal education
with unparalleled zeal. As the information given earlier indicates there was a
period of nearly seventy years between the introduction of secondary school
education in It should also be stated for
the records that these pioneers of education in Igboland were among the
foremost nationalists that The guiding motto was "ibu
anyị danda.“ Some communities contributed cash and land to sponsor some
persons, who performed meritoriously in secondary schools, in higher
educational institutions at home and abroad. The Igbo wanted education for the
knowledge and power it provided. They also saw the education of young people as
a communal activity to which different people contributed according to their
resources. It would appear that it was from the Igbo that Sir Eric Ashby (now
Lord Ashby) obtained the title Investment
in Education for In this section I shall take up
specifically three case studies. But before I do, let me state that aspects of
the lgbo attitude to formal education in its early years in Igboland seem to
have been shown in the creation of the Anambra State University of Technology
(ASUTECH). In the establishment of the multi-campus ASUTECHI, communities
donated land and individuals donated cash and other resources. Furthermore, the
spirit of ”ibu anyị danda" 'still exists in many parts of Igboland.
For l stance on (a) "IBU ANYỊ NDANDA" AND THE UPE IN IGBOLAND You may recall that in 1954,
there was a new revenue allocation formula which made the Eastern and Northern
Regions of Nigeria poorer end the Western Region richer than before its
introduction. This situation as well as well planning which started in 1952,
enabled the Western Region to Implement successfully an ambitious programme of
Free Primary Education which was launched in January, 1955. Given the rivalry
between Eastern and Simply put, within one year the
"ibu" became too heavy for "danda" because the primary
school population increased nearly by sixty per cent (60%) from seven hundred
and seventy-five thousand to one million two hundred and nine thousand one
hundred and seventy-seven. Also, the Catholic Church which was a strong educational
agency in Another attempt at free primary
education was made by the (b) THE "IBU ANYỊ NDANDA” SCHOOL: The spirit of "ibu anyị
danda" dominated education in Igboland during the 1940s and 1950s. It was
that spirit which in 1948, encouraged the people of Nkwerre Opiegbe to team up
with the Anglican Mission to found a secondary school called Nkwerre Opiegbe people took on
the building and development of The construction of the
football field for the school was again an ”ibu anyị danda" story
involving the students, the staff, and the towns people. In the process of this
work, there were plenty of stones collected from the grounds. These stones were
used to build the first library of the school. Everybody connected with the
school showed the dogged determination of the "danda" to overcome all
obstacles. Then, This eventually attracted what
was called a "double stream levy” which meant that every communicant paid
six pence and every student paid three pence toward the expansion. Before long,
a total of four thousand pounds was collected and the two thousand pounds left
after the Archdeacon was paid back went into further expansion. The “double
stream levy” started at Nkwerre was to become an important instrument of school
expansion in Igboland. The spirit of The curriculum in (c) "IBU ANYỊ NDANDA" AND THE As has been pointed out
earlier, nationalists, foremost among who were Igbo pushed in the 1950s in the
direction of modifying school curriculum. They also pushed in another
direction. Led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, they attacked the The
1937, lamentation was to form the current that gathered sentiments and ideas of
like-minded people. Until in the 1950s' Dr Azikiwe as the leader of a Regional Government
was able to set up a machinery for translating the ideas into reality. The blossoming In effect what happened was
that Dr Azikiwe was in an excellent position as Leader of the Government of Eastern
Nigeria to exploit for the good of everybody the "ibu anyị
danda" spirit of the Igbo. The idea of establishing an autonomous
University had strong opposition from the leadership of the Nigerian Union of
Teachers as well as many British educated Nigerians who felt that standards
would be lowered. Their opposition was aided and abetted by the British
Director of Information Services who ensured that views of the opposition and
not those of the supporters of the move were always publicized. However, the idea of the
University had its own strong support. There were such American-trained
academics as the present Minister of Education, Professor Aliyu Babatunde
Fafunwa and the current president of the Here was another case of
"ibu anyị danda" which has given Thus, in spite of criticisms,
the To seek
the Truth To
teach the Truth To
preserve the Truth and thereby To
restore the dignity of man. The At the said convocation, the
President of this country, General lbrahim Babangida, paid .growing tributes
both to the University of Nigeria and to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of
the Igbo in general and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, in particular. It was an emotional
moment for many of us present when he turned to the Owelle of Onitsha and
stated: To you Sir,
the entire nation owes a debt of gratitude for bequeathing to us this legacy of
innovation, pragmatism and dedication to a noble cause, in order to raise the standard
of education in 4. SOME CURRENT PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF NIGERIAN EDUCATION Between the Nairobi Conference
of 1968 and the Lagos Conference of 1976 African government had talked much
about using education to bring about a new world economic order as well as
rapid transformation of the African continent. Thus, the Nigerian National
Policy on Education, introduced in 1977 and revised in 1981 was received with
fanfare. In fact, all of our English-speaking West African neighbours have
modified their educational systems along lines parallel to ours. The policy standardized primary
education at six years beginning at the age of six for the whole country. It
also introduced the two-tier secondary school featuring the initiation of
introductory technology during the first three years called the junior
secondary school and the diversification of the second three years known as the
senior secondary school. The former become operable in 1982 and the latter was
introduced in nine states in 1985, in some other States in 1986 and in the rest
of the states in 1987. However, even with the immense efforts of the National
Policy on Education Implementation Committee, the implementation problems of
the Policy remain many and varied. Among them is inadequacy of teachers of introductory
technology and the slow rate of diversification of the senior secondary school. Nevertheless, the most
pervasive problem of Nigerian education at all levels is poor funding. It would
appear that for many years now the best funding that the system has produced is
to manage to find enough money to pay the poorly paid personnel who service it.
Thug, we find that system-wide about eighty per cent (80%') of the recurrent
expenditure is used for salaries, leaving very little for producing the goods
and materials which th6 personnel need for providing the services for which
they are paid. Then, there is the confounding factor that capital budget has
been minimal. This has meant that we have been, for the most part, unable to
provide new buildings or new desks and chairs or new laboratory equipment or
even maintain existing structures and equipment. The poor state of funding leads
to some other problems. One problem that is in many ways directly associated
with it is the unhealthy and unattractive environment of our educational
institutions. In many of these, the buildings need to be painted; there are
several uncompleted structures; chairs in the classrooms are dilapidated; the
grounds are unkempt and the lawns are not mowed regularly. Toilet facilities,
where they exist, are poor. Primary and secondary school teachers do not have
comfortable teachers' rooms and headmasters and principals do not have
comfortable offices. Where libraries exist, most are like stores with some old
books and a few chairs and tables in them. A third problem of the Nigerian
educational system and one that is threatening the purpose of education is
indiscipline. Ours is not a perfect society since no such society exists.
Naturally, some degree of indiscipline is expected in all non-perfect
societies. However, it would appear that in our society the degree of
indiscipline at the moment is out of proportion with our level of development.
Some have tried to explain the problem in various ways. Among other things,
some hold that some traditional values that have been abandoned have not been
replaced. The transitional stage between the abandonment of traditional values
and the replacement of these displaced values has witnessed an unenviable toll
on our society. It has now become easier for some Nigerians to murder others
for money or to be hired to murder persons they don't even know. It has become
easier for some Nigerians to cheat and defraud others or institutions. It has
become easier for some Nigerians to tell the "white lie" or to "whitemail
others". Within this type of society,
the educational institutions have suffered. Some students have demonstrated
different and varied incidents of indiscipline. Among these are truancy,
frequent lateness, inattention in class, purposeful disruption of class
activities, reckless use of money, examination malpractice and insults and
assaults on teachers and other older persons. Some of the teachers have not
behaved better. In some cases, some teachers have been caught aiding and
abetting their wards in acts of indiscipline. In some cases, some teachers have
been known to report in the school, sign the school register and, with or
without the connivance of higher authorities, go off for other pursuits. In
some cases, some teachers have been known to stay and chat in the staff room
when they are supposed to be teaching and that after reminders from the class
prefects. Amazingly, many times these incidences are not reported and the
culprits are not disciplined. Sometimes, there has been the question of who
will "bell the cat" because some who have attempted to do so have
suffered for same. A fourth problem that is
widespread in our primary, junior and senior secondary schools is poor
management and supervision. The standard practice now in our country is that
local governments have ultimate responsibility for primary education. In
various states, schools boards or teaching service commissions or the like have
been created to manage secondary schools on behalf of the ministries of
education. Even with this clearly spelt out responsibility at the secondary
level, supervision has been improperly executed, most times neglected. On
management, many principal and headmasters would appear to lack leadership
effectiveness. Yet, as Professor B.O. Ukeje
(1991:24) has said: In The fifth problem has also
persisted over the years at both the primary and secondary levels. This is the
fast rate of growth of the school population. The primary school population grew
from 2,912,618 in January 1960 through 3,515,827 in 1970 and 9,867,961 in
1977/78 to 13,996,518 in December 1989. That is, the population increased
nearly fivefold during the period of thirty (30) years. Similarly, the
secondary school population increased from 135, 364 in January 1960 through
310,054 in 1970 and 913,648 in 1977/78 to 2,901,993 in December 1989. This
shows more than a ninefold increase in the thirty year period. These growths
have had an immense impact on the entire educational system. The sixth problem is associated
with the fifth. It is the problem of out of school youth. This problem exists
at different levels. The first is that there is a small proportion of children
who do not begin school at all, even given the programme on nomadic education
and the migrant fishermen programme. Second, there is a slightly higher
percentage of children who drop out of the system at the end of primary school.
Third, there is a slightly higher percentage who drop out at the end of junior
secondary. Fourth, there are the large numbers who complete senior secondary
schools and have no where to go or anything to pursue. Fifth, there are diplomates
from our colleges of agriculture, colleges of education and polytechnics and
graduates from our various universities who are unemployed. I shall now take up four
challenges to the Nigerian educational system. One of these is the challenge of
effective teaching which exists throughout the system. Ineffective teaching
manifests itself in many forms. In the primary school mathematics is poorly
taught because most teachers dislike the subject and are poorly trained in it.
Primary science and social studies are poorly taught because most teachers are
unfamiliar with both the content and methodology of these subjects. In the
junior secondary school such subjects as mathematics, integrated science,
introductory technology and Nigerian languages lack competent teachers. In the senior secondary school
such subjects as physics, chemistry and geography have become unpopular mostly
because of lack of effective teachers. Mathematics is so poorly taught that a
significant proportion of each class considers it a punishment sitting in the
mathematics class since the subject is compulsory in the senior secondary
certificate examination. While a teacher is supposed to be a catalyst,
facilitator, it can be claimed with a high degree of accuracy that many
Nigerian teachers are unexciting and uninspiring in the classroom. Professor
Pai Obanya has called them ”cheaters" where the word "cheater"
has the same seven letters with the word teacher. At the university, the story
is not very different. The cheat appears in the form of a person who reads
outdated notes. A second challenge is what I
have called the challenge of the "indigene" phenomenon, merit,
standards, quality and quota. A's we strive in |
