Nigeria: Education Policy: More Questions Than Answers

Thu Dec 20 15:08:00 UTC 2007

Education Policy: More Questions Than Answers
By Bukola Olatunji, 12.18.2007

In his keynote address at the opening of the ministerial session of
the annual National Council on Education (NCE) meeting, held in
Katsina, last week; the Minister of Education, Dr. Igwe Aja-Nwachuku
said the session was "of particular significance, being the first in
the life of this Administration", and that it "would be one of the
most challenging sessions of the NCE considering the centrality of
human capital development to the seven-point agenda of President Umaru
Musa Yar'Adua, GCFR, and its clear implications for the nation's
education sector."

When he craved the indulgence of his listeners to take time to throw
some light on what the ministry had been up to in the last five
months, THISDAY and perhaps, many others that were present, had
thought, "at last, here come the answers to the many questions that
had been thrown at him and his colleagues, Ministers of Education I
and II, Dr. Jerry Agada and Hajiya Aishatu Jibril Dukku at different
times."
What is the policy direction of the sector? What has the ministry done
in five months and with three ministers? Is the government throwing
the reforms embarked upon by the former Minister of Education, Mrs.
Obiageli Ezekwesili out?,  What becomes of the Federal Unity Colleges
(FUCs), Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic that had
been slated to be upgraded to universities and the merging of the
other federal polytechnics with contiguent universities, among others?
THISDAY had sought Aja-Nwachuku's comments on these. But while not
granting an interview, he had used different fora to give some hints
to the effect that, first, the federal government was taking another
look at the reform agenda to ensure that they conformed with the rule
of law; the concessioning of the management of FUCs was suspended and
that the merging of polytechnics with universities had been stepped
down, among others.  If one had expected detailed answers to these
many questions in Katsina, what one got were more questions.
Unfortunately, not all the issues can be addressed here.

The Minister had said that the compulsory, free Universal Basic
Education (UBE) Act 2004 was to be reviewed to redress flaws and make
its provisions more realistic and enforceable, as well as allow for
federal intervention in basic education to be truly needs-based.
A feature of this review, which some observers describe as a policy
summersault with far-reaching effects, is the Federal Government's
resolve to jettison its policy on disarticulation of junior and senior
secondary schools, two years into its implementation.
This same NCE had, in 2004, agreed on a five-year disarticulation plan
to commence that year and end in 2009. By that time, all junior and
senior secondary schools, both public and private, were expected to be
run by separate administrations and eventually have separate
locations. No fewer than 11 states have practically disarticulated all
their schools.

The existing six-year secondary education was said to be in
contradiction to the existing policy of 6-3-3-4 and should therefore
be discontinued. To ensure the proper implementation of the nine-year
basic education programme, each state and the Federal Capital
Territory was required to provide a space  for every child who has
successfully completed primary six into any of the three Junior
Secondary Schools of his or her choice. Since the FUCs admitted
students through the National Common Entrance Examination that had
been discontinued, they automatically became senior secondary schools.
The Minister said, "The disarticulation of junior from secondary
schools occasioned by the implied need to comply with the provisions
of the UBE Act, 2004 is a policy reform that needs to be reviewed
given the lessons learnt from its two years of implementation."
According to him, "The UBE Act restricts the use of the 2 percent of
the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) annual Federal Government grant to
funding, provisions of physical infrastructure, instructional
materials, capacity building of teachers and free lunch in public
primary and junior secondary schools excluding FUCs (Federal Unity
Colleges)."

He explained that the reasons for disarticulation of JSS from SSS include:
• to avoid breaching UBE Act by expending the 2 percent CRF on aspects
of senior secondary education which the Act prohibits;
• to ensure administrative and operational convenience in the
implementation of the UBE programme at the JSS level;
• to stem possible crisis between students of JSS and SSS that may
arise from the favouritism given to JSS that are housed in the same
location with SSS students;
• to further reinforce technical and vocational education at the
junior secondary level through distinct curriculum and delivery.
But, the Minister added that, "we in the FME are strongly concerned
over the impact of the reforms in eroding the primary philosophies of
the founding fathers in establishing the FUCs.  "In addition it is not
needful to encumber private school proprietors to comply with the
reform policy, neither is it necessary to jeopardise technical and
vocational training by its implementation in public schools.

 "The costs in terms of physical infrastructure and availability of
competent teachers may diminish the actual gains of the UBE in
interventions if the policy of disarticulation is pursued in some of
our basic school, and may further disrupt the smooth operations of
private schools or FUCs.  The achievement of UBE Act could still be
realised without excising or severing of junior from senior secondary
schools." In addition to these, the Minister the disarticulation of
junior secondary schools from FUCs was a serious drawback to
facilitating national understanding, cohesion and harmony through
them.  "This will also impede the reinforcement of technical and
vocational education at junior secondary level as the FME would be
unable to provide models for States and other proprietors", he said.
But were all these not considered two years ago?

Consequently, the Minister announced the restoration of junior school
in the FUCS. THISDAY learnt, later, that the schools can once again
admit students into the Junior Secondary Class 1, with effect from the
2008 academic session.   The Minister, who said the ministry would
call on NECO to prepare to conduct the entrance examination for the
schools, said nothing of the cost implication of doing away with the
policy. What becomes of the many public and private schools that have
been disarticulated? Will the country still be running the 6-3-3-4 or
something else?

It would appear, as it has been suggested in some quarters that those
who felt they lost out in the conversion of FUCs into senior schools
were behind the volte-face. Now their children, deserving or not, can
be admitted into the schools. The applause that greeted Aja-Nwachuku's
announcement of the restoration of the junior school in unity colleges
clearly confirmed this.  While stressing that statutory responsibility
for basic education provision belongs to the State and Local
Governments, Aja-Nwachuku took a swipe at states that "are now more or
less totally dependent on the UBE programme to plan and drive basic
education provision nationwide", saying, "the Federal Government's
intervention through the UBE programme is only for the purposes of
enhancing quality, ensuring balanced national development at this
critical level of education and accelerating Nigeria's attainment of
Education For All (EFA) to which it is globally committed…  The UBEC
projects are purely intervention activities, they cannot continue in
perpetuity.
The primary mandate of UBEC includes the provision of physical
infrastructure, distribution of some instructional materials and
capacity building at the Basic Sub-sector.   "To ensure sustained
quality education at the basic level" therefore, "states and local
governments should assume effective ownership of these projects and
demonstrate ample commitments to the vision and mission of UBEC", he
said.

The Minister also said, "The functions of the National Commission for
Nomadic Education (NCNE) and the National Commission for Mass
Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education (NMEC) are also to be aligned
into the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for the desired
well-coordinated and all-inclusive delivery of quality basic education
in the country." Are these two parastatals to be merged with the UBEC
as Ezekwesili had planned to do with some of the parastals in the
ministry?
On the other hand, the Minister disclosed that the National Minimum
Standards and Establishment of Institutions Act 16 of 1985, from which
the Federal Inspectorate Service (FIS) derives its legal backing will
be amended to upgrade it from a Department of the ministry to an
independent and autonomous education quality assurance parastatal to:
• develop the external assessment system;
• develop the standard and criteria for external assessment;
• certify external assessors;
• to supervise and set standards for external assessors;
• to develop and train external assessors; prepare training academic
bodies to participate in the efficient training of external assessors;
and
• to submit annual reports on the assessment of educational quality
and standards to the Minister of Education or most impartial and
appropriate body. The Minister said a major challenge and objective of
our reform agenda is the improvement of quality assurance in the
education sector through restructuring and revamping the capacities
and effectiveness of Federal, State and Local Governments'
inspectorate, supervisory and monitoring services.  Yet one more
question. Does the Inspectorate Service have to be a parastatal to
function?
Aja-Nwachuku  said the focus of the education sector reform of this
administration is to ensure premium quality and restore credibility at
all levels and sub-sectors of the national education system.

 On the reform agenda of the former administration, said: "We identify
with the broad goals and objectives of the education sector reform
agenda of the immediate past management of the Federal Ministry of
Education.  We appreciate and indeed commend its incisive and
comprehensive diagnosis of the problems of the sector through its
sector situation analysis.
"We also acknowledge some of its initiatives such as Adopt-A-Public
School Programme (now Renamed Support-A-Public School Programme), Exam
Ethics and Campus Safety, Community Accountability and Transparency
Initiative (CATI) and the Read Campaign as laudable.  However, a
number of its initiatives as well as implementation strategies require
fine-tuning to confirm to the rule of law and the necessity for
consensus building among all stakeholders.  We are therefore
redefining the reform agenda and processes in conformity to the stance
of this Administration to the rule of law and our resolve to carry all
stakeholders along for synergy.
With respect to the first above, THISDAY learnt that
Adopt-A-Public-School is an internationally accepted term for similar
projects found in many countries.

Perhaps for the umpteenth time, the Minister also announced the
stepping down of what he called "Hybrid-privatisation of the
management of Federal Unity Schools", saying, "As we await input from
the Nigerian public through informed expanded stakeholders' meeting to
identify the best management option to run our FUCs, for the mean
time, we have opted for the use of School Based Management Committees
(SBMCs) to revamp and reposition the FUCs to effectively serve their
objectives."
  The SBMC will have membership from Ministry of Education, host
state, host community, PTA, the schools management staff, alumni
associations as well as the civil society.  It will serve as the
governing board to oversee the management of the school and ensure
compliance with stipulated standards and approved guidelines.

 The expanded stakeholders' meeting will also consider the possibility
of replacing the Higher National Diploma (HND), being awarded by
polytechnics with a Bachelor's degree in Technology (B. Tech), while
the polytechnics remain as they are.
The proposal to merge Federal Polytechnics and Colleges of Education
into contiguous and proximate Federal Universities, he said, was "very
flawed" and  has since been frozen.  But what about about the two
(Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic) that were proposed
to be universities?

Perhaps one of the much awaited answers was the question of the fate
of the Language Villages or inter-university centres. These include
the Nigeria Arabic Language Village (NALV) Ngala, the Nigeria French
Language Village (NFLV) Badagry and the Nigerian Indigenous Language
Village (NINLAN) Aba Ngwa. Contrary to speculations that the first two
would become affiliates of some universities, while NINLAN has been
wound down. The Minister said they shall be strengthened to perform
their mandates more efficiently and effectively. While funding to the
Arabic Language Village would be increased, the Minister said the
winding down of NINLAN would be revisited, while the ministry has put
in motion a mechanism to get the National Assembly to pass an enabling
Act for the Nigeria French Language Village, taking particular note of
its language immersion programme.

Another policy that drew applause from the delegates was the provision
made for the excluded - the almajiris, out of school youth, street
children, orphans, area boys, vulnerable children or women, the
physically challenged and members of the very poor families. Two
percent of the UBE Intervention fund has been approved for their
education.  While he enjoined the states and local governments to show
political will to integrate them into the education system, " the
public and private employers of labour must also assure them that once
trained they will not be discriminated against in the labour market
rather they would be given preferential treatment by hirers of
labour", Aja-Nwachuku said.

At the time of writing this report, the communiqué that was expected
to be issued at the end of the meeting was yet to be made public. This
was understandable because the five-day meeting that was scheduled to
end on Friday went on till about 2.00am on Saturday. The secretariat
was therefore still at work when participants departed the ancient
city.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=98320
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