Finally, the Buhari administration seems
set to pay what appears a reasonable attention to the education sector
in the country with the recent appointment of new heads for no fewer
than 17 agencies in the sector. This is one sector in which everyone
directly or indirectly is a stakeholder. Even at the President’s age
when all seems to be over with formal education, he’s still basking in
the euphoria of the graduation of a few of his children. But what
excitement awaits Nigerians from the anticipated reforms from the new
agencies’ heads?
Most visible in the education sector
today is the reality that the administrators of the Joint Admissions and
Matriculation Board have exhausted whatever was left of their
creativity. I recall with nostalgia that this same board had been so
efficient in the past that it even made us believe in the post office
system in the country. At a time JAMB didn’t have an examination centre
in my community, I wrote its examination way back in the early 1980s
having to travel more than 20 kilometres. The scores were eventually
released to different universities including my own first choice, the
University of Ilorin. There was no unpleasant story. The local mail
man, as he had done with several ordinary mails in the past, strolled to
our family house one morning to deliver my admission letter. Thus,
began the process of my studentship at the nation’s “better by far
university” where the newly appointed registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ish’aq
Oloyede, was my “senior”. My university is one of the few in the world
today which sticks to a set of traditional dates for its most important
traditional ceremonies ranging from convocation to matriculation and so
on.
The anecdotal bit here isn’t a sheer
tale. As a university teacher today and one that has also had the
uncommon advantage of undertaking academic programmes in some high
performing institutions with highly rated scholarship and fellowship
awards, one cannot but feel for today’s children in schools. What
exactly are they made to get excited with? A couple of weeks back, a
300-level student of mine had excused herself from one of the classes I
teach so she could go and process her admission letter which had yet
to be released by JAMB! Perhaps, she doesn’t even have much reason to
blame JAMB having been admitted some would want to placate her.
It is particularly most disturbing that
the hope of several ambitious children of this digital generation of a
world with no boundaries again, has been shattered by JAMB because some
officials simply elected to be unduly callous and unpardonably out of
tune with the trend in the sector. How do we explain the deployment of
slow and low performing computers for such crucial tests like
Universities Matriculation Examination that JAMB conducts? The
unpalatable consequence of this is that some unlucky candidates who are
assigned such systems end up with scores below their real capability.
Anyone who reads the interviews often conducted for first class
graduates of some of our universities will readily recall that some of
these students have had to write this examination more than once perhaps
not because they didn’t deserve to pass at the first sitting.
Added to the challenge of infrastructure
now is the rather absurd confusion which JAMB is currently exhibiting
with regard to deciding the parameters of candidates’ admission. What
has happened to the findings of studies conducted on these by our
colleagues in the realm of test and measurement? What has happened to
the easier option of consultation with relevant experts who may have
conducted such studies in the first place? What is the trend in other
parts of the world? The nation cannot continue to agonise over the
cluelessness of the past government especially in a sector that
determines the present and future rating of the nationals and also in
comparison with the nationals of other countries of the world. Time
waits for no one.
Having been celebrated by his
contemporaries nationally, continentally and globally, the new JAMB
boss, surely knows what to do with the human factor in JAMB being a most
incorruptible academic and administrator of a most admirable standing,
I dare say.
Not the least needed is the radical
strategy to deal with the so-called special centres for JAMB
examinations. How did we get here? A JAMB that will surrender its
sovereignty to “private ownership” does not deserve taxpayers’ support.
It is shameful enough that the degeneracy that has befallen our public
education system has given rise to unwieldy outside-of-school
interventions to restore the hope of our ambitious youngsters. To
continue to sustain the extension of the conduct of JAMB examinations to
the private arena will be most indecent and unprofessional. Oloyede’s
profile which smacks of distinguished patriotism certainly has raised
the hope of many of us who have invested in the Nigerian project as
students’ union activists and graduated into development enthusiasts and
lately scholars.
For the Tertiary Education Trust Fund,
it’s been comparable to what the renowned playwright, Ola Rotimi, calls
“the slender body of joy…” A great measure of lethargy and
territorialism has since permeated its system. It, indeed today,
functions as if it isn’t the outcome of the rigorous vision of members
of the community it has been established to serve.
The Fund has indeed done well to advance
invaluable support to all government-owned tertiary institutions for
physical and human developments. Some otherwise disoriented scholars
have been purged of hopelessness. It is particularly commendable that
under Historian Yakubu, now of INEC, the Fund published a list of some
institutions that failed to retire some funds that they had collected.
It is however not certain if the Fund still does this.
It is quite interesting that the
accolade the University of Ilorin attracts to itself today also derives
partly from TETFUND’s support. It will therefore not be out of place for
TETFUND to learn from the tradition of high performers like the
Universities of Ibadan and Ilorin. For reasons known only to TETFUND,
it stipulates deadlines for submission of applications for conference
grants to lecturers. It however does not seem to reckon with dates when
such grants may be released to the potential beneficiaries. These
people are made to wait pitiably without explanation. This becomes
increasingly surprising in an age in which computerisation has
substantially demystified precision. The new head, Abdullahi Bichi
Baffa, should realise that TETFUND has competitors in local and
international grant making organisations from which their supposed
beneficiaries also benefit without having to genuflect to suggest
corruption. Indeed, hoping the new head has experienced it, the various
philanthropic organisations in town relate with their beneficiaries as
partners and collaborators.
For JAMB and TETFUND, tertiary education
in Nigeria is a common denominator from which a lot is expected. Will
they measure up this time with new heads to captain their ships?
0 Comment to "Agenda for ‘born again’ JAMB and TETFUND"
Post a Comment