TERM PAPER: HISTORY OF WESTERN EDUCATION IN NIGERIA:THE PROBLEM FACING IT AND HOW TO SOLVE THEM
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The development of western education in Nigeria cannot be treated in isolation from traditional forms of education. In this society, traditional education was a way of life before the advent of Western education introduced by missionaries and the colonial administration. But inspite of the growth and success of western education in this region, the place of traditional education still remain significant.
The need for the understanding of traditional form of education is far beyond interpretation of the past, but a useful basis of comparison of human progress.
The need for the understanding of traditional form of education is far beyond interpretation of the past, but a useful basis of comparison of human progress.
Western Education came to Africa due essentially to European imperialism in the continent during the nineteenth century. The missionary bodies, merchants and diplomats from Europe found it necessary to institute their educational system in order to support the colonial regime. In Nigeria, Western Education was planted in 1842. The planting of western education at this time was necessary for the spread of Christianity and provision of low and middle manpower for the colonial system. Thus, in the colonial era western education was interwoven with Christianity (Ajayi 1965; Fafunwa 1974; Ayandele 1966; Taiwo 1981; Adesina 1980).
The importance of any form of education lies in the fact that it is at the centre of development of a given society. As such, a well developed educational system will undoubtedly lead to the production of trained and skilled manpower who are indispensable in bringing about social change. Most societies throughout history provided some kinds of education for the young so that they can live and succeed in a hostile and a changing society. Significantly, the perpetuation of education and culture depends solely upon successful transmitting to the younger generation of accumulated knowledge. Education is cultural inheritance; without it, civilization may collapse in a few decade of its existence. Thus, educational objectives in any society concerns itself to a great extent with the pace of the learner, the requirement of the society, and the nature of the subject matters.2 The Nigeria people are Yorubas. Sharing a common cultural identity and experience with other Yoruba sub-group. They
occupy a geographical area east of Ilorin with a population of roughly half a million inhabitants. They are primarily agriculturists and they enjoyed a settled isolated community life. They have a great regard for education generally regarded as the corner-stone, since there is hardly any aspect of life that is not influenced by it. Education, whether traditional or formal has its related objectives. The prime purpose of education in any society is the fullest development of individual human personality and intellect, liberated to understand basic wants. In an emerging society such as Nigeria, education is expected to prepare people for life. This means that an educated person ought to be concerned with the political, cultural and material progress of all the people. They should look forward to a time when every young person can have an equal opportunity of developing his or her talents to the fullest. This paper has the primary purpose of tracing the historical development of education
among the Nigeria people of Kwara State in Nigeria. A secondary purpose is to highlight the activities of the missionaries as well as their achievements in the process of educating the people of Nigeria. Missionary Activities in Nigeria The rise of humanitarianism at the end of the slave trade directly opened West Africa to missionary activities. In Yoruba land in the 1840's missionaries of various denominations began to penetrate in large numbers, challenging the old order and introducing new ways of life. The missionaries were extremely successful in their objectives, partly because many of the early Yoruba converts (usually ex-slaves) were used as tools of propaganda in the expansion of mission work.3 In 1900, when the colonial government was established, relationship between the missionaries and the colonial administrators were not competitive but cordial. Everywhere the missionaries went, the British government acted as a protective shield. Throughout most of the colonial period in southern Nigeria, missionaries and the colonial administration acted in concert. The reception accorded early missionaries in Nigeria was antagonistic rather than cooperative. The antagonism did not come from the local people alone, but also from inadvertent collusion between the Emir and the colonial administration. For instance, when Mr. Mckay of C.M.S. attempted to settle permanently in Nigeria in 1905, he was totally rejected by the Emir and his representatives4. They argued that the people would rather adhere to the indigenous religion than to Christianity.
Of significant importance in the study of the growth of western education in Nigeria was the impact of the disparity of environmental setting of the region. The vast portion of western Nigeria land was an open savanna which was very conducive to population movement with less protection. This region was the area of intense movement and interaction of Nigeria people during the 19th century Yoruba warfare. While western Nigeria was a typical area of prospects of urbanisation and developments, the entirety of north east Nigeria were hill settlers. The north east region occupied by the inhabitants of Oke Ode, Oro Ago and He-Ire were entirely separated from the rest of Nigeria. The Nigerias along this region captialised on the given environment for protection against invaders. The caves and the cliffs of mountains served as hiding places during the Yoruba and local warfare.5 Thus, all attempts made by the Fulani war leaders to dominate the Nigerias of hill top settlers in the east proved abortive as the imperial forces were repelled. This was the environmental and the political situation when three pioneer missionaries (Dr Rowland Bingham, Walter Gowan and Tom Kent) arrived in Lagos in 1893 and proceeded inland to find the first mission post in. Pategi in 1904.6 Their organisation was interdenominational and loaded with ambition of "evangelism to redeem Africans from their evils." They did-not settle in the coastal regions of Nigeria to avoid clashes with other missions already established. It was also believed that deep in the interior of the country in the Middlle Belt was the wide region of heathen people they termed "no man's land" where they would best satisfy their
curiosity. Although, these pioneer mission-ries never entered Nigeria land, but their mission post at Pategi became the pivotal mission route for later generations of missionaries to Yagba and Nigeria areas.
It was not until 1912 that the first missionary Rev. G. Playfair penetrated Nigeria land through Oro Ago, east of Ilorin.7 Although the route from Lagos via Pategi to Nigeria was long, yet, it had an overwhelming advantage over the shorter route from Ilorin. The eastern route avoided conflicts against Ilorin and the colonial government over Islam and Christianity in Western Nigeria. Besides, the unique environment of the east was protective and kept the region out of contact with outsiders in the past. The choice of mission settlements in this region was seen as an ideal protective area free of competition and handicap for growth and development. It was here, the root of Sudan Interion Mission, (S.I.M.) later known as the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) Mission was planted and later spread like bush fire to every corner of Nigerialand with its educational institutions.
Problems Encountered by the Missionaries Missionary experiences in Africa were not the same everywhere, but depended on the reaction of the communities in which the missionaries worked. In many instances, missionaries were welcomed with great enthusiasm, while in other circumstances some communities rejected their presence because of their influences on the indigenous culture and traditions. Significantly,
in most instances where the missionaries were accepted, the Africans had a defined motive for the acceptance. For instance, in the 1840's, King Eyo of Efik, the ruler of Creek Town in the Cross River region, sought missionary help for economic advantage. He wanted to secure control of a river town whose wealth and lucrative trading posts he had long wanted. As a result of his enthusiasm for the missionaries, Creek Town became a centre of missionary and economic activities. By the same token, Nigeria admired and adopted Christianity because the people wanted the missionary education they had seen among the coastal Yorubas. Many Nigerians who had been to Abeokuta and Ijebu saw missionary education as the source of economic, social and political power.9 For them, the proof of the worth of Christianity was the position of prestige
which the Yorubas enjoyed with the Europeans. When the missionaries arrived in Nigerialand, they were not without problems. Apart from cultural shock and language barriers, they were confronted with reactions from the indigenous population. In the first place, the Missionaries encountered strong opposition from the religious elites who saw the missionary presence as an encroachment on their traditional values.
The missionaries sparked controversy when they condemned African religion and began to preach the good news of Christ. Many herbalists were annoyed when they denounced African medicine both curative and protective. Instead, by 1920, health clinic and dispensaries were growing everywhere the missionaries settled to preach. Gradually, Nigeria medicine men and ritual leaders saw that their profession have been relegated to the mud as they were constantly losing customers to the missionaries. Within a short time, the missionaries were aware of the growing desire and response to early Christian religious classes which emanate from daily devotion before treatment in their local health centres. In addition the missionaries began to participate in the annual bush burning and hunting expedition which was associated with ritual ceremonies among the natives. To the missionaries on the other hand, it was a means of getting into the society and capturing the, imagination of native hunter by display of automatic rifle. In the long run, it was these inducements that enabled the missionaries to lure Africans into the Christian orbit as many natives were attracted to European medicine and consequently converted to Christianity.
CHAPTER TWO
CHALLENGES FACING EDUCATION OF OUR TIME AND POSSIBLE SOLUTION
As you must know, the price of crude oil on the world market is right now in rapid decline raising the terrible possibility of implementation of austerity measures and other attempts by government to limit spending in a frantic effort to stabilize the economy. In this unfolding situation, we should expect that important social services like public education which enjoyed no concrete improvement when the economy was allegedly doing well would be the first to face budget cut. Of course the immediate repercussion would be sharp increases in fees and further decline in the condition of public education. Therefore you could not have chosen a more apt theme for this occasion.
Just imagine for a minute that if despite the over one decade of huge revenue from crude oil Nigeria ranked 142nd in health and basic education globally as well as 113th in higher education and training and was among the last 20 in the world, then how low do you think Nigeria would rank let say in the next one year on the basis of the decline in oil revenue and the cut in education budget that is being planned? I leave you to answer that question in your mind. But if you ask me I would say we are in for a real tough time ahead in the education sector and it would take the same spirit of solidarity and struggle students of this great University evoked in the over 6-month struggle against LASU fee hike to resist every attempt by government in the coming period to attack our right to education through austerity measures and other anti-poor policies. My paper hopes to highlight the real roots of the crisis of the education sector in Nigeria and proffer the way forward. This is within the perspective of the roles that trade unions, students and working masses can play in the process of rescuing the education sector from the abyss.
Now it will be restating the obvious to state that the Nigeria’s education sector is in crisis. However, a statistical x-ray of all the levels of education in Nigeria would provide a deeper insight of the enormity of the crisis that education is entrapped in.
A. Basic education: Low enrolment and low quality of teachers
10.5 million Nigerian children of school-going age are not attending school – highest in the world (Source: Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2012). According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report Index, 2011-2012, Nigeria was ranked 140th out of 144 countries in primary education enrolment. Enrolment of children into schools is as low as 12.0% in some states. 6 million of 36 million girls out of school world-wide are Nigerians.
Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that has had to launch a boy-child education campaign – launched by the Federal Government in the South-east in June 2012. In 2008, Kwara State tested 19,125 teachers in Primary Four Mathematics; only seven teachers attained the minimum benchmark for the test in Mathematics. Only one of 2,628 teachers with degree passed the test; 10 graduates scored zero. The literacy assessment recorded only 1.2 per cent pass.
B. Secondary education
Our public secondary schools have failed in their calling as the crucial stage preparatory to entering higher institutions. In the 2014 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), over 60% failure was recorded with just 31.28% obtaining credits in five subjects. This came on the heels of similar dismal performances in the past two years. 36.57% and 38.81% had credits in five subjects respectfully in 2013 and 2012 editions of the same examination. Attempts are being made to dump the blame for this terrible failure on parents and teachers but the reality is that the fundamental cause of the failure is government anti-poor capitalist policy of underfunding education.
C. Universities and other tertiary institutions
The rot in this sector is reflected in the low quality of graduates. Nigeria’s university system is in a crisis of manpower. Instead of having no less than 80 per cent of the academics with Ph.Ds, only 43 per cent are Ph.D holders while the remaining 57 per cent are not. And instead of 75 per cent of the academics to be between Senior Lecturers and Professors, only about 44 per cent are within the bracket while the remaining 56 per cent are not. The staff mix in some universities is alarming. Kano State University; Wudil (established in 2001) has only one professor and 25 Ph.Ds.
“There is an average of 4 abandoned projects per university in Nigeria” – with negative consequences for classrooms, laboratories, students’ hostels, and staff accommodation. Poor infrastructure adversely affects teaching, research, learning and students’ health and safety. The polytechnics and colleges of education are no less better as they confront infrastructural problems and decay. Their products are equally subjected to inferiorization in the labour market. Also there is 56.9% shortfall in the academic staff of public Colleges of Education translating into a shortage of 14, 858 lecturers. In a similar vein, there is 56.9% shortfall in the academic staff of public polytechnics and monotechnics translating into a shortage of 17, 548 lecturers. (Shu’ara, J. (2010) Higher Education Statistics – Nigeria Experience in Data collection).
D. Underfunding, Commercialization and Fee Hike
The Federal Government has never met the 26 per cent annual budgetary allocations recommended by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The highest the FG has allocated to the sector is 13 per cent. It would be recalled that the Academic Staff Union of Universities waged a year-long struggle in 2013 for proper funding of education which forced government to release N200billion into the University system. However, this has only spiraled into wave of attacks by local university administration on the access to education by students from poor background. For instance in Obafemi Awolowo University,Ile Ife, Osun State, the university made sharp increases in the fee regime in what was believed as a means of retrieving the gains of the struggle waged by ASUU. A similar dimension is developing in the University of Portharcourt in a move which belies a grand plan to introduce tuition into federal universities as tacitly reflected in the resolution of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors recently.
States controlled by the so-called “opposition” states are equally underfunding education thereby creating myriad of infrastructural decay and poor learning conditions. For instance, it took tenacious struggles of students and mass of working people in Lagos state to force Governor Babatunde Fashola to reverse the fee hike in Lagos State University. Ditto applies to Olabisi Onabanjo University and other institutions in some of these “opposition-controlled” states.
SOLUTIONS
Having examined the problems bedeviling the education sector in Nigeria, this paper would move on to examine the solutions that is needed. However, it is the view of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) that the fundamental solution is to urgently put into power a working people’s government that will mobilize the enormous resources of Nigeria to provide free, functional and democratically-managed education at all levels.
1.1. ADEQUATE FUNDING OF EDUCATION
The abysmal low level of allocation to education must be reversed. According to the United Nations Education and Socio-Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 26 percent of the annual budgets should be allocated to the education sector. However, education in Nigeria is allocated less than 13 percent. ASUU fought a courageous struggle to force the hands of the Federal Government to commit more resources to the university system and the education sector. We need to build a powerful movement to force the hands of governments at all levels to commit resources to fund education. It is in this regard that the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) is set to launch in the New Year a campaign for a one-day nationwide lecture boycott and mass protest of Nigerian students to begin to demand that government commits more money to the funding of public education.
1.2 AUTONOMY AND INTERNAL DEMOCRACY
Autonomy and internal democracy are essential to the University system. Unfortunately over the years government has interpreted the demand for University autonomy to mean that universities will also be responsible for their own funding. To make the University system operate without bureaucratic bottleneck and administrative curtailment, full autonomy must be granted to ensure that whilst Universities are funded by the State, they have enough independence in the election of their principal management officials and determination of other matters without undue interference by the State. At the same time however, management of Universities, polytechnics, monotechnics, colleges of education, teacher training institutes must be democratized in such a way that elected representatives of students, workers, parents and communities are allowed in the decision making organs instead of the current bureaucratic manner tertiary institutions are run.
1.3. INFRASTRUCTURAL REPAIR AND DEVELOPMENT
An urgent repair of critical infrastructure is needed at all levels of the education sector. This would mean providing latest facilities for learning based on latest technological advancement. For instance, information technology devices are now being used for primary and post-primary education and a serious programme of revamping education must take into cognizance these advancements.
1.4. REMUNERATION AND PENSIONS OF EDUCATION WORKERS
What has been the most recurring crisis in the education sector has been the poor remuneration of both teaching and non-teaching staff in the education sector. To retain the best brains and attract new hands into the education sector, a comprehensive policy of improved remuneration of the workers of the education sector and a genuine pension scheme are urgently needed. The current contributory pension scheme is exploitative. If ex-presidents most of whom looted the country’s finances have a favorable pension scheme, those who work their hands stiff daily to build this society deserves better. We demand a genuine pension scheme that ensures that workers are able to live a fruitful, healthy and fulfilled life after retirement.
1.4 POST - UTME
The Post - Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) was introduced few years ago by force by universities against the background of the corruption and failure of examination bodies like JAMB and WAEC. However the ERC feels that the additional cost of the Post - UTME cannot continue to be borne by students and parents. It is unfair! In many Universities, post - UTME has now become a means of raising Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the detriment of students and their poor parents. We suggest that the cost of post - UTME should be borne by the Universities since it is a means by them to take care of the inadequacies of other recognized examination bodies.