The Evil of Commercialization of Education in Nigeria

By:
Ajukura, Fidelis O.
ajukurafidelisobi@gmail.com
07031523329
10th December, 2021.


The term education is generally defined as the process of facilitating learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits etc. This definition is broad in the sense that it covers the three basic strands or types of education viz; informal, non-formal and formal. But my concern or emphasis in this work is formal education. Before I proceed, it is pertinent that I clarify the key terms such as; commercialization and formal education. Commercialization is simply defined as a "process of managing or running something principally for financial benefit" while formal education "is a type of education that is structured by individual boards of education with basic guidelines that have to be strictly followed by both teachers and students". In short, formal education is an education that takes place in the school e.g., primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

Prior to the advent of formal education in world history, children grew up in hunter gatherer societies; during this period, they learned various set of survival knowledge and skills as the living conditions were unfriendly- this knowledge was handed down to them by their parents and elders. The hunter gatherer lifestyle later bowed out thereby ushering in the practice of agriculture. In this regard, children spent more time in acquiring the necessary skills to work on family lands. This practice of enculturation continued unabated till about 3100 BC when Egypt and other ancient civilizations came to the realization that it was difficult to pass knowledge from one generation to another through verbal or oral tradition alone. It was against this background that writing was invented to record and preserve knowledge. The new art of documenting events and so on was however, not open to everyone - only children of the privileged members of society were permitted to learn the new skill of writing. The pattern of learning the new skill was different from the old ways in which children learned from their parents and elders. Unlike the old ways, children were taught by experts and in a more organized manner. This marked the beginning of formal education.

As the idea of formal education continued to spread; in Greece, centers of learning were opened. Among the earliest centers of learning were the Ionian and Eleatic schools. Later, a group of teachers known as the sophists began to move from place to place teaching different subjects like; logic, grammar etc to people who were interested in gaining knowledge. Other great philosophers like Socrates followed in this tradition but, unlike the sophists was not interested in collecting money or being paid for his services. Although, the government wanted patriotic citizens, it was not keen in developing or building them through formal education. However, religious groups and traders needed morally upright men and trade compliant workers respectively. It is in this regard that some knowledgeable individuals took it upon themselves to build centers of learning (schools). Plato opened or founded The Academia in 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years before establishing his own school, The Lyceum in 335 BC. Formal education in ancient Greece was, to a large extent controlled or dominated by private individuals. In other words, ancient Greek society was dominated by private schools and not public or government schools. However, the ultimate goal of these schools were not pecuniary: they were more concerned in building patriotic and men indisputable probity.

By 16th Century, formal education had become compulsory in Europe. The Protestant Church was instrumental to this development in the sense that everyone, according to the Church 'ought to be able to read the Bible on their own'. By 19th Century, the idea of propagating the gospel had been adopted by several other churches such that they started fighting for world dominance. This situation led to the spread of missionaries to different parts of the world including Africa. As they were spreading the gospel, they were equally introducing church based formal education to the indigenous people

In Nigeria, formal education was introduced by British missionaries. In 1840's, The Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) established several schools. Initially, the colonial government supported the church by giving them financial aid but in the beginning of the 20th Century, the government began to build primary and secondary schools. By 1914, a total of eleven secondary schools have been established across Nigeria. Out of this number, only one was operated by the missionaries. Although, in the area of primary school, the missionary had ninety-one schools while the government had fifty-nine.

Nigeria, after independence has continued to pursue educational policies that will liberate the people from the shackles of illiteracy. Even before independence, Nigeria has been concerned in making formal education accessible and affordable to the generality of Nigerians. This dream has constantly been affected by a number of reasons; chiefly among them is the absence of uniformity in management policies of schools across the different federating units or regions. For instance, the desire of government to make at least, primary education tuition free has been conceived long ago but its implementation did not get a unanimous approval. On the 17th of January, 1955, the then Western region launched the Universal Primary Education. In 1957, the scheme was launched in the Eastern region. Later, in 1976, the Obasanjo Administration reintroduced the scheme with close to five hundred thousand pupils in primary schools. Following the failure of the scheme because of the problems of corruption and poor funding, the government again under Obasanjo (this time as a civilian leader/President in 1999) launched the Universal Basic Education Scheme. In this new scheme, every Nigerian child, it was envisaged would be entitled to basic education up to the junior secondary level. The education would be free, universal and compulsory for all children between the primary and junior secondary schools.

The effort of making formal education accessible and affordable to Nigerians has been one of the core principles of government beginning from the colonial era. In the area of secondary and tertiary education, government has equally demonstrated the same zeal in promoting the literacy level of the country by making sure that school fees and other relevant levies are brought down to the barest minimum. Unfortunately, many parents who could not afford to pay the stipend - school fees for their children or wards in secondary schools resorted to sending them to private schools which were mainly business/commercial or technical colleges. These schools were poorly run and offered low quality of education. Majority of them operated in conditions not suitable for learning and certainly not government approved. Some (private) commercial schools operated in a bizarre manner - no light, no instructional materials/facilities etc. Teaching and learning was hell. Despite this challenges, some poor children had to pursue their education here mainly due to financial constraints. This is not to say that there were no private schools which had qualified teachers and offered qualitative and expensive education however, they were very few. Parents who sent their children to such schools did so mainly for subjective reasons.

The cookies began to crumble when the Federal Government introduced the most sought after Federal Government Unity Schools. Federal Unity Schools, upon their establishment were considered to be a symbol of pride, privilege and pedigree. In fact, they were designed to be the bastion of quality education in Nigeria. As the crème de la crème of secondary education, obtaining admission into these schools was not a piece of cake, students must not only come from rich homes, their parents must either be or connected to the 'who's who' in the country. The standard of education in these schools was indeed very high compared to other normal secondary schools.

The towering height of Federal Unity Schools can be conveniently described as the springboard for the proliferation of commercialization of education in Nigeria. During this period, parents were more captivated by class and not quality of education provided by the schools. Many who desired to send their children or wards to Federal Unity Secondary Schools but could not do so because of the absence of right connection became agitated and therefore, started looking for schools similar or close to the Federal Unity Schools in terms of name and class. Incidentally, this was in the late 70's through to the 90's when Nigeria's economy was booming with oil money. Many parents who had access to wealth brought about by oil money became so much engrossed in elegance and class. Against this background, many big organizations within the Federal and State government levels and some, within the private sector started building gigantic staff schools for their children. The objectives of building these schools were soon displaced as some parents working in these organizations had their children transposed by children of more wealthy parents outside the organization who were ready to pay any amount in order for their children to be enrolled into the prestigious schools. This period witnessed the relentless upsurge of schools such as; University Primary and Secondary Staff Schools, Army Command Primary and Secondary Schools etc. As these schools continued to gain unprecedented attention, politicians and business men who have no business with education began to see the need to exploit the lushness of the education area by establishing prodigious schools purely for commercial or pecuniary purposes. As the newly established private schools continued to grow with extraordinary rapidity, majority of the proprietors of these schools who also happen to be critical stakeholders in government began to pay less attention to education development policies. The reason for this is obvious - to weaken government or public schools thereby, promoting their private owned schools. Today, it is no longer news that virtually all government functionaries both past and present own schools. Some politicians who do not wish to be identified in this regard have their collaborators who front for them as proprietors. Business men and women are not left out as they too want to maximize as much profit as possible. The nonchalant attitude towards genuine education development especially, by government functionaries accounts for the falling standard of education in the country. This situation has strangulated the education sector such that over ten million children no longer go to school - this is the highest in the world. Among those who are already in school, twenty-seven million are performing very poorly owing to the absence of instructional materials/ facilities. The situation is further exacerbated by the problem of poor funding. The amount of money allocated to education in Nigeria's budget is abysmally low. For instance, in 2018, only 7.04% of the total budget was allocated to education. In 2021 budget proposal, education receives 5.6% of the total budget, the lowest since 2011. This is far below UNESCO's recommendation of between 15% and 26% of total budget. The implication of such meager allocation to education is that many children will be deprived of having a quality education; the rate of illiteracy will increase and academic performance will drop significantly.

Another area that has been identified as a bane to the growth of education in Nigeria is politicization and insincerity in the implementation of government policies and programmes. Many government policies and programmes pertaining to education, rather than address problems or challenges inherent in the sector are used to score political points. For example, the building/renovation of schools, distribution of instructional materials etc have not been on the basis of need but on the basis of political interest. In this regard, some localities with little or no need for instructional materials and other aids from government, for one reason or the other end up getting more than is required. This, obviously has led to waste of resources as some of these materials are either underutilized or outrightly vandalized or stolen. The School Children Feeding Programme is another example. The amount of money earmarked for the programme does not address the core challenges bedeviling the education sector. Right from 2016 when the programme was launched, hundreds of billions of naira has been expended without anything to show for it. Rather than wasting this humongous amount of money on a programme that many consider to be a sham, it is important to divert it to some other meaningful venture that will make positive impact in the sector.

The difficulty currently being experienced in the education sector is one mainly initiated by the government. This situation has imperiled public schools thereby, putting the fate of parents and their children into the hands of capitalists who pretend to be promoting education. Unlike the missionaries who worked tirelessly in taking education to even the remotest areas, the capitalists are only concerned in maximizing profit - they focus their attention only in urban and semi urban areas. Since the rural area dwellers who are predominantly peasant farmers and petty traders do not have the resources to enjoy the services of the big private schools, they are compelled to make do with the public schools around them. These schools are usually without the basic learning materials and facilities. Few private schools can be sighted in some rural communities; these schools are however, owned by some desperate individuals who try to eke out a living for themselves - the schools are not different from the beleaguered public schools in the sense that they do not have qualified teachers and basic learning or instructional materials/facilities.

With schools safely in the hands of business men and women, everything is viewed from the point of profit: school textbooks and other instructional materials which used to pass from one school child to another in a family in order to lighten the financial burden of parents have been abolished by the league of private school owners. Today, parents are compelled to pay for all the instructional materials of their children including those that are not necessary. Schools have turned to market centers where everything relating to school are sold at exorbitant price e.g., shoes, sandals, socks, handkerchiefs, bags etc. Many of the schools especially, boarding schools will never accept items bought outside the school no matter how good they are.

At the height of the Coronavirus pandemic when lockdown was declared in all communities, some private school owners insisted on collecting school fees despite the fact that their schools were affected by the lockdown. Selfishness is the driver propelling private schools; the ultimate concern of these schools is 'making money'.

Tertiary institutions are not left out in the fray. Many government institutions of learning are plagued by poor funding and incessant strike action by lecturers. Government owned tertiary institutions are like battlefields where the losers are the poor parents and their children. This situation has made rubbish of public tertiary institutions such that private higher institutions particularly, Universities have become the destination of the wealthy parents and their children.

Private tertiary institutions do not experience the predicament and setbacks usually encountered by the public institutions. The owners of private tertiary schools ensure that sufficient funds are made available for the running of their schools: their major source of raising fund is through payment of tuition fees and other levies which are usually enormous. Many average parents, in the quest to give their children a good university education have had to go through thick and thin while others especially, civil servants indulge themselves in all manner of unwholesome practices just to see their children through (private) school.

The presence of private schools which are driven by profit margin have created colossal damage to human capacity building in Nigeria. However, the capitalists who own schools are not to be blamed for this unfortunate development, the government created the necessary atmosphere for the flourishing of the private schools. Although, as I have shown in the preceding lines, many of the private school owners who are directly or indirectly involved in the running of government are responsible for the downward trend of public schools because of the flagrant disregard of the education sector which has catalyzed a fertile ground for private schools.

It must be clearly stated that the concern of many Nigerians is not the presence of private schools but the spirit behind their establishment: these schools are introduced not for the sake of promoting education but, as it were maximize profit. In other words, the private school owners use their schools as a means to making money. For this reason, they project every idea that will help them achieve this goal. This practice is clearly in contradiction to that of the ancient Greeks who used their learning centers (schools) as a means (not to make money or become rich but) to promote education.

To come out of this quagmire, the government must appreciate the fact that education is the bedrock of every genuine development - no society succeeds without it. Politicians must stop politicizing education policies. Monies wasted on education programmes like the School Children Feeding Programme etc should be channelled to more worthy ventures like building of classrooms and equipping them, renovation of existing ones, supply/judicious distribution of instructional materials and above all, improving teachers welfare.

Adequate attention must be given to education. Sufficient fund must be made available to the education sector to enable it function optimally. There should be a sincerity of purpose in the implementation of education policies and programmes by government officials. Teachers should be treated with dignity and respect; not with scorn as it's currently being experienced. If these steps or measures are taken, the hawks that have hijacked and commercialized education in Nigeria will naturally back away. In this way, both private and public schools will coexist harmoniously - parents will, at least be at liberty to choose private or public schools for their children as the standard and quality of education they render are the same.

God bless Nigeria!