We hear right sounds, but await actions...VC

President Muhammadu Buhari

The service sector is booming in most developed capitalist economy. Service is taking over crude-raw industrial production, and these are areas where individual ingenuity seems to flourish. And, we must refocus our educational system to encourage our young men and women to tap into this new knowledge industry to use the knowledge they acquire to better prepare for the world of work.
Basically, what is wrong with the educational system is the same as what is wrong with the whole Nigerian social-economic system. The ethics and the moral base upon which education is founded has to be revisited. ICT revolution has its pros and cons, but our youths are today soaked in a global information space that makes them less focused in terms of ethics and morality. Virtually everybody who is engaged in the educational system is caught up in that contradiction. We must find a way of refocusing our educational system and understanding the ethical and moral base of the society. This is very critical to the outcome of what we get out of our youths.


Education for education's sake: simply running schools that are dysfunctional and pouring money into institutions without even understanding why they are not performing, is not what education entails. It is not just about the percentage of the budget we spend on education, it is much more than that. We have been spending, yet people are complaining that we are not spending enough, and even the one we have spent, we have not gotten the best out of it because we have allowed the moral tune of these institutions to degenerate. When you don't pay teachers, they try to cut corners. Our  children on the other are always on the computers learning all sorts of things and there is nothing to counter it. We don't even have the education that counters what these kids are getting on the internet. No educational system that can react both to the positive and to the negative side of modernization, hence what we get from education is less than what is desire.
There is a good side to the growth of information and technology; no doubt, our kids are exposed to far more positive information than we were exposed to, so, the ability for them to use it is there. But education must then look at the positive aspects and see how to enhance them. Recognize that there are negative aspects and also prepare them to counter it.
Young kids today, are being exposed to all sorts of ideas  in the secondary schools, and in the tertiary institutions. These young kids are exposed to all sorts of ideas and they are grappling with how to process and use those ideas and they don't have the support from the educational institutions to say, ‘Listen! Yes you will see these things but these are the implications - the damaging influence of a global world, and  we can't run away from being part of this global world.  The global culture is taking over; students are now willing to idolize Pop stars. The moral value is shifting so rapidly that who they see as mentors and what they think they can follow are really more of fantasies which the  world has created.  In developing economy like ours, we have not been able to use education to sieve what is right, that will help our culture and development and to react to those things that are breaking down our culture and our development. This administration should see how we can use our educational sector as a tool for liberating and empowering, as it were, the human community to be more appreciative of the God-given potentials that they have, and actually use that potential for the good of humanity.
To be able to achieve this, first of all, there has to be a broad base conversation on education now and where education is going. We have to go back and revisit our policy on education, focusing on those areas where generally we agree we have problems. There is a need to build a consensus on the sort of things we teach in schools. This dialogue should be based on a consensus, there should be a national consensus as to how we fund the education. This is not government imposing things on people. I think this whole idea of not funding private tertiary institutions despite the fact that more people are seeking admissions into these schools because they cannot get into the government schools, should be revisited. Every child that has to go to a private school should have access to scholarship, loans or grants, because every Nigerian child has a right to education. If the government cannot provide all the spaces Nigerians need, there are other schools providing these spaces and the government should recognize that these private schools are providing services to the Nigerian people and stop treating them as if they are some kind of miscreants. Increasingly, these tertiary institutions will provide the spaces that Nigerians desperately need. That is what this government should look at.
On a final note, it is too early to tell whether or not this government will fare well. I am one of those who'd shy away from unwarranted pronouncements. The situation now is particularly not too encouraging, especially in the last six months. The economy, the social structure and the political structure, all nose-dived.
The first thing this government should do is to arrest the situation and put in place policies that are sustainable. For me, the Nigerian political class is the same, regardless of whether it is one political arm or the other; they are all the same. The nature of the class remains the same and the system of the class remains the same. We operate a very exploitative social economic system. Unless this system comes out boldly to say, “Listen, we are going to change the structure, the philosophical and ideological basis on which we have governed this country need to be changed.” If they don't say that, then honestly, I would want to see how the change that is coming would be so profoundly different from the existing trend because it is the same political class. We are just moving from one arm of that political class to another. Their character is the same, their logic is the same. So, for now, we have been hearing the right sound, but we have to wait for the action. I won't be quick to say anything. The thing is to wait and see how policies would be rolled out, and the courage that the government will summon to challenge some of the very glaring contradictions in the society.
I want to see whether, actually, that courage is there to face squarely the challenges of our time.
This is an excerpt from Crystal Newsmagazine chat with Professor Michael Kwanashie the Vice Chancellor of Veritas University Bwari Abuja in his office.