ZHUL-QI’DA 25, 1429 A.H.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2008
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Education and the Millennium Development Goals: A peripheral analysis (I)
By Prof. Abdulrashid Garba
Being an invited lead paper presented at the 6th National Conference on Education and the Millennium Development Goals, by Abdulrashid Garba, PhD, organized and hosted by Federal College of Education (Technical), Bichi, between May 26 and 29, 2008.
Let me begin by extending my message of congratulations to the management, staff and students of this great institution for organizing this conference, which by all indications, is truly national.
Conferences like this hold the promise of expanding frontiers of knowledge as scholars from diverse backgrounds share outcomes of their individual and group research efforts and personal experiences. Such conferences accord participants the opportunity to hear and be heard, to agree and disagree and to see and also be seen, which essentially, are what learning is all about.
I will also like to express my profound gratitude to the college management, particularly the organizers of this conference for finding me fit to give one of the lead papers.
Let me quickly share my view of what a lead paper is supposed to do in a conference of this nature. A lead paper usually gives a guide in advance on the course or the direction of a given conference by highlighting the major issues which the theme of the conference addresses. The paper does so by provoking thoughts, raising doubts, stimulating discussions, asking questions and providing a framework for analysis. I hope to be able to do just one of those treaties by providing an exposition on this thorny issue of education combined with an international expose as enunciated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The paper considers the issue of education as the pivot upon which all discussions on will emanate. The paper therefore, presents as its main background, some discussions on education in Nigeria and the National Policy on Education. The MDGs have also been discussed with particular reference to the genesis and conceptualization of the international agenda. How education can be used and/or rechanneled towards the achievement of the MDGs has been presented. In doing that the social and political dimensions of education were constantly kept in focus. It is only when the two dimensions are combined that the citizenship ‘nature’ of education will begin to take shape, (Ahmad, Lopez and Inoue, 2000).
Education in Nigeria
Education in Nigeria has evolved over a long period of time with a series of policy changes. As a result there have been increases in the enrolment of children and in the number of educational institutions both in public sector.
The 1976 National Policy on Universal Primary Education has given every child the right to tuition free primary education. Later, the 6-3-3-4 system was introduced. Subsequently, the National Liberacy Programme for Adults was launched, followed by the establishment of nomadic education to address the needs of children of migrant cattle herders and fishermen in the riverine areas.
In October 1999, Universal Basic Education (UBE) was launched, making it compulsory for every child to be educated free of tuition, up to the junior secondary school level, all in an effort to meet Nigeria’s manpower requirement for national development, (Bartlett, 2003).
What first comes to mind when one talks of Nigerian educational system include deterioration of facilities, examination malpractices, poorly produced teachers and the like. All these have their toll on the quality and standards of education. It is surprising also that all these are happening in a country whose philosophy of education is on.
Education being an instrument for national development; fostering the worth and development of the individual for his/her sake and for the society in general; according every child the right to equal educational opportunities; and the need for functional education for the promotion of a progressive united Nigeria.
This philosophy of education according to the FGN (2004) is based on the development of the individual into a sounded effective citizen; the integration of the individual into the community; and the provision of equal access to educational opportunities for all citizens.
The questions are: how can a system of education that is characterized by gross inefficiencies as portrayed in the methods and techniques of its delivery and the style and nature of its administration ensure the development of anybody into a sound and effective citizen?
How can such a system ensure the so-called integration of anybody into the country? In Nigeria therefore, a policy on anything, education inclusive, is comparable to any similar policy anywhere in the world, in terms of especially, the soundness of its contents; its relevance, focus and delivery methods.
What still remains a huge problem in Nigeria is seriousness and sincerity of purpose, absolute commitment to human and national development and the strength of political will to implement such policies.
The need for proper, purposeful acquisition of knowledge and skill cannot be overemphasized. According to Bartone, Bernstein, Leitmann and Eigen, (1994), successful development entails more than investing in physical capital or closing the gap in capital.
It also entails acquiring and using knowledge as well as closing the gaps in knowledge. This therefore, means that challenges of development in a country like Nigeria can only be confronted through the basic tasks.
We must acquire and adapt global knowledge and we must create knowledge locally; we must invest in human capital so as to increase the ability to absorb and use knowledge; and we must also invest in technologies to facilitate both acquisition and absorption of knowledge.
It is perhaps in confirmation of this stance that Fafunwa (1979:26) defined education as the aggregate of all the processes by which a child or adult develops the abilities, attitudes and the forms of behaviour which are of positive value to the society in which he lives. Education is a process of disseminating knowledge either to ensure social control or to guarantee rational direction of the society or both.
These explanations on what education is supposed to be in relation to the state of education and its processes in Nigeria may compel one to ask such questions as what has actually gone wrong, considering the enormity of its effect on output and productivity?
Responses may include such militating factors stemming from the incidences of exams malpractices, poor facilities and indiscriminate mass promotion in schools and so on. The causes of these could be traced to what may be seen as government’s insensitivity to education.
The National Policy on Education
Education policies are today, the focus of considerable controversy and overt public contestation. The analysis of such policies is an activity undertaken both by officials within the system and various commentators outside the system who presume that what they do is policy analysis.
This section will delve briefly into the National Policy on Education (2004). Since the publication of the first edition in 1977, the second, third and the current editions were published in 1981,1998 and 2004 respectively.
The NPE, as it is known today was a product of the National Conference on Curriculum Development which was organized and hosted by the then federal government in September 1969.
In June 1973 another national seminar on the NPE was held. The report of the seminar which was published in 1977 was the maiden edition of the NPE. In 1981 the NPE was revised with a view to bringing it in line with the new constitution which came into effect in 1979.
The policy was again revised in 1998 by mainly, introducing vocational education as a sector, among other things. The sections were also reduced from 13 to just 11, (Brown, 2003).
The 2004 revised edition claims that the revisions were in keeping with the dynamics of social change and the demands on education. Whether or not such claim is worth while depends so much on how adequate and satisfactory the following questions are answered: What are the dynamics of the acclaimed social changes and who, when and how were they determined?
What are the demands on education, whose demands are they and who, when and how were the demands determined? In the absence of any satisfactory response to these and several other questions, one has but to speculate that the so-called dynamics of social change and the demands on education are speculative. No policy ever works anywhere in the world on the basis speculations.
A policy, for it to be valued, must be based on facts and figures which are, wholly or partly, outcome of a scientific enquiring. For the formulation of an educational policy it must be placed within the wider context of critical theory, which requires an understanding of the true dynamics (as opposed to speculative dynamics) of the various elements of the social structure and their interactions in the context of history. Educational policy documents are discursive embodiments of the balance of these dynamics as they underline social relations.
The policy on education, claims the FGN (2004), is government’s way of realizing that part of the national goals which can be achieved using education as a tool. The national goals as contained in section 1, paragraph 3 of the policy are five which include building of:-
a. A free and democratic society.
b. A fist and egalitarian society.
c. A unite, strong and self-reliant nation.
d. A great and dynamic economy.
e. A land full of bright opportunities for all citizens.
Parts of the positive happenings therefore, include the fact that goals of the nation have been identified which paved way for the formulation of a national policy on education in 1977.
Goals are supposed to be changing over time in cognizance of the changing patterns of the national priorities and global and global trends. The national goals have so far remained the same ever since.
We may take the excuse that such national goals are recurring national priorities whose achievement is continuous and cumulative.
Assessing the successes in the achievement of the national goals is therefore contingent upon the prevailing political, economic and social climates at a particular point in time.
This may even lead to the assumption that the various revisions of the NPE were targeted at addressing the national goals.
The proponents of this point of view may not be unaware of the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that a significant percentage of the various stakeholders have been consulted in the process of the various reviews; no evidence whatsoever to indicated that adequate data were methodically collected and analyzed for purposes of the revisions; no evidence whatsoever to indicate that there are adequate justifications to the claims that the content of the NPE have been adequately ascertained as measures for achieving the national goals.
The NPE has also claimed to have harmonized the philosophy of education with the national goals which brought about the national educational goals. The national educational goals are:
a. The inculcation of national consciousness and national unity.
b. The inculcation of the right type of value and attitude for the survival of the individual and the Nigerian society.
c. The training of the mind in the understanding of the world around and
d. The acquisition of appropriate skills and the development of mental, physical and social abilities and competencies as equipment for the individual to live in and contribute to the development of the society.
These national educational goals as enumerated above have been there in all the revisions of the policy?
The question here and now is, has there been any deliberate attempt by the government to ascertain the journey so far in the realization of these national educational goals. The problem with education in Nigeria has always been one of inconsistency between goals and means of achieving the goals. Goals in education in Nigeria are set as a policy, building on all without really thinking on the indices to ascertain and/or determine success (and failure) rates.
