THE 16 YEAR PLAN

"An illiterate society is a useless one in words and in deed. The collapse of education in Nigeria has contributed in no small measure to the general malaise afflicting and ravaging our land today."
– Dele Momodu

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Education, the pillar on which every serious and purposeful nation or sovereignty that has ever existed has been built, is something Nigeria does not seem to be getting right. Despite the claims by parties - political and not - that they can move our country forward, the truth remains that without a sound educational system or even a semblance of one, we are going nowhere! 

The current system in the country has failed, in my opinion, producing a lot of graduates that, to put it mildly, do not know their lefts from their rights. Even taking a step before graduation, the quality of students leaving secondary schools today is nothing to write to your grandmother about; the terribly abysmal WAEC results in recent times clearly spells this out. Still taking another step backwards, barely anyone remembers the once popular final primary school examinations that once made headlines (on the Backyard News Network), making young children carry books like ‘Ugo C. Ugo’ that were often bigger than they were. I wonder what the trend for the Common Entrance examination is these days.

The Nigerian educational system is in dire need of resuscitation, recent attempts to fix problems in the sector have not yielded much tangible fruit; as I write this, the failure rates still remain largely unchanged. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Fund are examples of ‘gallant’ efforts to revive our schools but the method of application of these funds is a topic for another day. I believe the lack of success of these efforts, notwithstanding the issues in implementation, is due primarily to their being channeled in the wrong direction. We have a fundamental problem yet solutions are being targeted at the symptoms and not the disease. One thing is that we Nigerians tend to focus solely on the ‘end’, we complain about final products but do little to scrutinize the full process holistically.

The situation with our educational system is no different, we are quick to condemn lecturers and universities, as we rightfully should, for their incompetence and flaws (where they exist), but we fail to criticize the rotting and dilapidated primary schools that are more often than not, in our very own backyards. You should have heard of students sitting under trees for classes in some so called schools by now, if you had not, you have now. So who are we kidding? We expect Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), University of Ibadan (UI) and University of Benin (UNIBEN) to produce top notch graduates but we feed them second tier undergraduates, we expect Barewa College, King’s & Queen’s Colleges and Federal Government College Warri students to achieve distinctions in WAEC, NECO and JAMB but we feed them teenagers with the intellects of toddlers. No, it is not possible; miracles do not work that way.

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Our current status quo is an expression of another of our fundamental problems today. We have to change our thinking. We have to start looking at the path we follow and not just that the fact that we arrive; we have to step out of our own shadows. We have to sit down, think deeply, ask the right questions and design an appropriate solution to our moribund educational system; we need to plan!

Looking around the world at countries that have made it or that are currently making it, one can see that there is a positive correlation between their success and mass quality education. The United States (US) has most of the top universities in the world - 37% of its young population are tertiary graduates, Japan’s University of Tokyo is ranked one of the world’s top ten by several organizations - 40% of its young population are tertiary graduates and even our very own South Africa houses most of the top African universities - 12.1% of its above 20 population are tertiary graduates, despite its recent outburst of xenophobia. These three nations are just some of the well-known examples. Education, formal or not so formal, is one of the only things that can take a people ‘somewhere’. Our Nigerian institutions and students are seething with potential but it is a shame that the current structure leaves that potential as it simply is, potential, instead of harnessing such latent power to help the nation 'make it'. If you are in doubt of the immense potential, click diaspora to see what Nigerians outside Nigeria have achieved. Let’s get to the plan.

[The Background] There are six years of primary school, six years of secondary school and about four years in university. Adding all the school years together we get sixteen, sixteen years. This is the basis of my plan but I must confess at this point that it is not a fool-proof solution to the existing problem in the educational sector but rather more of a guiding path that can be improved upon before being followed. My plan is called the sixteen year plan because it will actually take at least sixteen years for its full effects to enter society. This is a long time, I know, but remember that the patient rat gets to eat food from the pot when the cat leaves the kitchen.

[The Plan] The sixteen year plan (16-yp) refers to a complete reformatting of our current educational output, or so to speak. It does not involve a change in curriculum or anything so drastic, although I believe the current syllabus is in need of some tweaking. The plan is to gradually change the quality of students in our institutions starting from year ‘N₀’, when the first set of students to be affected by 16-yp is admitted into their first primary class across the country. I should step back a bit here; part of the restructuring of the scheme is to gradually replace old and retiring teachers with a new wave of newly employed and properly trained teachers. I am not insinuating that our current teaching staff is not properly trained but this sketch of a plan aims to leave no room for errors, it is a holistic resurrection.

Now, the new set of teachers will begin teaching with the new set of pupils and as the pupils progress from grade to grade, new 16-yp quality of teachers will be continually added to schools as the older teachers retire and leave the service. There will be minimal educational contact between old staff and the ‘new pupils’ (Old teachers who still have significant years of service to render may also receive training on the 16-yp ideology). This plan is not a fire brigade approach; it takes into cognizance the system in place and attempts to make pertinent changes without causing unnecessary unrest in the system. For this plan to work, schools across the country have to be improved to international standards and the training the new teachers are to receive needs to be what is attainable in countries like South African, Japan and the US. More importantly, the minimum requirement and level of remuneration for educators needs to be raised, to attract bright minds to the service.

The first major sign of progress of the scheme should be seen from a generally improved common entrance result six years after commencement of the 16-yp programme but I know this will not be enough to convince the world. Yet another sign of improvement will be a better ‘Junior WAEC’ result than has been seen in recent times, still I am sure there will be doubters. The first major incontestable sign that education has evolved would be an unbelievable WAEC result, more ‘A’s than would have been seen in the last ten years combined. The first generation of a new Nigeria would be on the right track, twelve years after we would have set their course. After sixteen years, we should have a new set of engineers, lawyers, medical personnel, scientists, social scientists, technicians and even artists that will propel Nigeria into another world. It is worthy to note that every educational opportunity to be obtained during this new regime is to be by merit, no longer shall we lower the bar for any individuals.

Fixing education from the foundation upwards is the only way to build, as my learned lawyer friends would put it; “Nihil fit ex nihilo ” meaning,  “Nothing comes from nothing.” I castigate the system that produced me knowing full well that I am indicting myself, but the truth must be told. I believe that for Nigeria to show its seriousness to progress, its drive to join the League of Nations, my dear country must first find a way to teach her children. No more half-baked and partially polished minds, we need our gems to shine and our bread to remain in the oven until it browns.

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God bless The Federal Republic of Nigeria and beg our brothers in South Africa to stop killing us!


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