PROGRESSIVE DECAY OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA: CAUSES, EFFECT AND REMEDIES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

GENERAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Education has its greatest testimony as being a means of developing human intelligence and skills needed to produce wealth and sustain a suitable and democratic society.

This education which I believes is the highway towards the attainment of individual goals, economic security and in general the pride and integrity of the nation has totally has been turned to the shame of this nation.

Furthermore, if one would look into the educational sector of this nation, he would agree with me that our standard of education has decayed up to the extent that our graduates from universities and polytechnics are nothing to write about.

Our educational sector in the century has been encountering so many obstacles which include the following:

1.      Unstable academic calendar due to frequent strike action especially in the primary school and institution of higher learning.

2.     Inadequacy in Teaching and research material

3.    schools been underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded especially in the institution of higher learning.

4.     bribery and corruption has really affected our educational sector.

Government has to ensure that these obstacles that are pulling down out educational sector has to be tackled so that we will have a smooth educational system.

1.2       PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PROGRESSIVE DECLINE IN THE LEVEL OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

our educational sector in the recent years has so many problems that were associated with it which cannot be overemphasized.

The problems which has brought about declination in our educational system include:

1.    Instability of our school calendar/system: In recent years, there has been so many industrial action by teachers/lecturers that schooling become so boring to the extent that students were frustrated.

This has also in the primary/secondary school made it possible that in some schools, students are promoted to the next class because they have stayed so much at home there by making tomorrow so gloomy by destroying their leaders.

2.   Inadequate teaching researcher equipment: Some subjects like physics, chemistry in secondary schools need a well equip laboratory for teaching. Coming to the institution of higher learning some causes like engineering, computer science, medicine, lab tech, etc need to be practicalized but unfortunately the required equipment are grossly lacking in some school thereby producing educated illiterates in their profession.

3.     Under staffed, under funded & overcrowded schools: Some schools lack well trained teachers (especially in the secondary school) while in some subjects, no teacher is featuring at all thereby making it difficult for this ones to cope with higher institution education. In the same vein, some of our higher institution is so underfunded that there is no accommodation both for leaders and for residential purposes. This normally result to the school/place being overcrowded thereby making life uneasy for students.

Meanwhile, the few schools that are a little bit comfortable are so expensive that their school fees can only be afforded by the rich not to talk of the reading material thereby depriving the poor the opportunity of being educated as well as tampering with the manpower development of the economy general.

In addition, the menace of our campus cultism has not stop posing a dangerous threat to our educational sector in that, what this hopeless group of people embark on is violence which did us more harm than good. They destroy school property, kill fellow students and intimidate others.

Finally, corruption which is a big canker worm in our educational sector. Corruption is in all level of our educational sector. In the aspect of admission, unqualified students are admitted at the expense of the unlucky one; in the part of the students, exam malpractice is the order of the say. In the part of the lecturers, some lecturers intimidate students because they refuse to pay for success which they have acquired by the grace of God coupled with hardworking.

Infact, for our educational sector to survive the nation must urgently find a lasting solution to all these problems.

1.3    PROBLEMS THAT AFFECT THE STUDY.

There are problems which this research work will be concerned with. One of the obstacles is time factor. Since this research is to be carried out alongside with normal school work, it is not possible for the researcher to cover so many areas as touching this particular topic.

Secondly, financial constraints is not left out. This will prevent the researcher from carrying out this research in so many schools.

1.4    IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THIS AREA.

There are some benefits of studying this area which include the following;

1.     To know whether anything can be done about this problem and to recommend possible solution.

2.    To ascertain if there is any effect this poor level of education have.

3.    To find out the main cause of decline in our standard of education.