Do We Need Another #EndSars Protests Before We Re-invent Teaching In Nigerian Universities?

By Lucky Okoedion

Not only have Public Universities in Nigeria been closed for almost a year now, all forms of teaching has been halted. Covid-19 is the flimsy excuse as if there are no alternative means of teaching without physical contact. It has become the latest display of irresponsibility and recklessness by the leadership of the most populous black nation on the planet who are more concerned about politics, and elections than the welfare of her citizens. Within this same period that Covid-19 has been used to halt all forms of learning and education, physical elections have been conducted, and the legislators who are elderly and more prone to the Covid-19 virus keep holding sessions. It doesn’t make sense. It has become a clear case of an excuse to neglect the youths of the nation.

This negligence is the new challenge to education in Nigeria which is facing other horrible challenges. On one side is the Islamist terrorist group named Boko Haram (meaning “western education is forbidden”) which continues to wage war against “western” education in Nigeria, with thousands killed and millions displaced from their homes. On the other side is the decades of negligence and poor funding that has made the global value of education obtained from public universities in Nigeria almost worthless. Then at the center is an outdated curriculum that is bereft of innovation and practical skills that ensure employ-ability. In spite of all these areas where the NUC has to do a lot of catch up with the rest of the world, it is unfathomable how they are comfortable with the complete shutdown of tertiary education in the country.

It is no longer news that systems are excessively rigid in Nigeria. The laws and regulations that govern the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) which is the body responsible for the regulation of Universities and by extension tertiary education in the country are not an exemption. We seem to have to always sacrifice the progress of the nation just to operate within the confines of rules, laws or regulations that are largely divorced from current reality. To make matters worse, most of these regulations and laws are cast in stone by the framers of the laws because of the nearly impossible procedures laid down for amending the laws.

In other progressive parts of the world, leaders, legislators, and public administrators are constantly on their toes retooling and re-inventing their laws and regulations to make their administrations and society catch up with current realities. But today in Nigeria, the NUC has failed to re-invent tertiary education to catch up with the new realities imposed on us by the Covid-19  pandemic which many experts say is not going away anytime soon, despite the presence of a vaccine. As a consequence, millions of Nigerian students have had their lives punctuated and their educational plans disrupted too easily because of our rigid constitution and rigid NUC regulations and lack of the will and swift framework for re-inventing and redefining ‘what teaching means’ and ‘what learning objectives are’ in a covid-19 and post covid-19 world. The question is “Why can’t NUC provide leadership for universities to adapt learning expectations to adopt online medium in order to halt the social injustice of depriving millions of Nigerians their right to education despite the pandemic?”

Just as in the case of growing insecurity that has seen many regions in Nigeria defy the rigid 1999 constitution which prohibits state or regional police to set up their own security outfits to protect their people instead of allowing their people to keep dying on the altar of worshiping the constitution which many say is ‘evil’ for being so divorced from reality and difficult to amend, many private universities have also broken away from NUC regulations to use online means to provide education for their students (or customers). And now, we wish that the NUC and the management of public universities, and the federal government will be at least as motivated as the leaders of the private universities.

It is sad that systems and leadership in this country seems to be reactive instead of proactive in catering for the needs of the citizens. We do not need another #Endsars protests before we re-invent teaching in Nigerian public universities. The students in Nigerian public universities suffer a lot already – from being admitted to study courses that are not their choice to not being sure of employment after graduation and other abuse in the hands of corrupt university lecturers. It is unjust to add this alteration to their academic progress to the list.

We need to urgently re-invent instructional techniques to make it possible for online platforms to be able to meet most learning objectives, thereby creating an alternative system of tertiary education that can operate without physical classes except when it is time for practicals. Then Covid protocols can be observed for those practical classes.

If the government values its future which is the youths as much as it values politics and elections, the government can provide that every student can use their Matriculation Number and ID to apply for internet data discounts from Internet Service Providers.

Lucky Okoedion is a believer of a new Nigeria where true democracy is practiced. He writes from Benin City, Nigeria. He can be reached on +2347038820118.