Lagos — Independent Nigeria is forty this weekend and many will be celebrating the nation's arrival at an age that traditionally marks the shift from young adulthood to maturity. But is it a Happy Birthday? AllAfrica put that question to six ordinary Nigerians.
For Violet Ikeri, 47, a primary school teacher, the way forward is for the government to give adequate funding to the educational sector. Although government says its committed to the provision of qualitative education to the children, Ikeri says system for now can give only "quantitative" education.
"As an independent country, our school children should be taken care of," she says. But this is yet to happen. In the primary schools, she says, its common to see school children sitting on the floor "because there is no furniture." Most classes are over-populated because the government "has refused to employ more teachers." While the stipulated students-teacher ratio is about 40:1, "you see a class teacher handling up to 50 students."
"We failed because of inconsistency in government," she argues. With frequent and sometimes violent changes in government, she says, successive governments failed to adopt policies initiated by their predecessors.
Primary education also suffers because its not clear who is responsible - is it the federal, state or local government? This confusion affects even payment of teachers salaries. "We dont really know who is paying us." This state of confusion has given birth to the slogan among the teachers: "We have no godfather."
The way forward, says Ikeri, is for a proper demarcation of responsibilities. Ministers, she says, must "work in tune with what the people want." The federal government early this year launched a Universal Basic Education program, which offers free education to every child for the first nine years of learning - six years of primary education and the first three years in the six-year secondary school.
The program is scheduled to take off this October. Ikeri says this is an opportunity for the government to tackle the problems facing the educational sector. "We expect to see the quality improve as a 40th independence anniversary present."
