“Primary Education in Nigeria has suffered neglect by government at all levels including parents as well as teachers.”
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| A dilapidated structure being used as classroom in Northern Nigeria. |
Primary education as the bedrock of all educational institutions was established with the core mandate of bringing up children in their late childhood to meet individual, family and societal expectations. That is to say that, it determines the success and failure of any further academic or educational pursuit.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); It is against this backdrop that the federal government of Nigeria (2004) in her National Policy on Education defines primary education as the education given in an institution for children between the ages 6-11 and above to prepare them for the task ahead.
It is expected therefore that, since it is a vehicle that drives home societal growth and development it would have less challenges in order to live up to its mandate. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Primary education has been greeted with myriad problems stemming from the parents, government and teachers.
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| A mother having home lessen with her three kids |
Parents have significant roles in determining the end products of the school system. Until parents are able and willing to perform their roles effectively, not much would be expected from the school in the overall attainment of the expected or pre- determined goals and objectives.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); On the part of government, it is certainly true and infact, it is in the public knowledge that most public primary schools can better be described as punishment centres for children of the poor due to government negligence, inconsistent and poor educational policies.
This is seen in the depth of poor state of most public primary school facilities, meager budgetary provision for public primary schools, absence of teaching aids, poor renumeration of teachers (condition of service) among others.Teachers also have their share of the blame. Most teachers lack prerequisite qualifications to teach these category of pupils. Most of them are not abreast with teaching methodology, professional ethics etc.
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| Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai |
It is evident when Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state sacked most of them for not passing simple examination. Some are competent but can’t perform optimally because of the poor conditions of service they are subjected to.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); These including other reasons are gradually denying the sector from actualising it’s contribution to the development of the Nigerian child and the society.
It is a clarion call that all the stakeholders in these sector should rise to the occasion and let us, together, fix the primary education in Nigeria.
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