A pioneer of American public schools in the 19th century, Horace Mann, famously described education as “the great equalizer of the conditions of men”. But the reverse also holds true, in the sense that students who either receive poor education, or drop out of school before graduating, can very well end up finding themselves on the wrong side of a lifelong gap in employment, earnings and even life expectancy (Brittanica website).
Likewise, quality education and its decidedly deliberate application in the course of undertaking the onerous task of steering the ship of development of the society has often been the major difference between developed nations and the not-so-developed ones. Indeed, societies that have developed the world over have often been those that have focused on improving and sustaining the quality of their education and ensuring its access to every child as a deliberate policy.
Before the advent of private schools in Nigeria, and Kano in particular, public schools provided the only avenue for educating the children, and it was common practice to find the children of Emirs sitting side by side with the children of a dogari; the children of high ranking government and military officials sharing the same class with the children of labourers and other artisans.
Back then, education was free and, therefore, affordable and accessible to just about every child, regardless of his/her family background, and the quality and educational standards of the schools were roughly the same, with the only determining factor regarding which of the schools a child would be enrolled into by his or her parents being its proximity to their place of residence.
The story around the provision of quality education in Kano State has been a mixed bag of sorts, with giant strides recorded by some governments, while others fared less so in that regard. For example, the determined focus of the late Abubakar Rimi – led government in promoting quality education, especially in the sciences, during the Second Republic is still noteworthy, resulting in the production of many top rate professionals in various disciplines, such as medicine, engineering, architecture and the like.
Many of these professionals who are still making their mark in their chosen fields of endeavour came through his model science schools in Dawakin Tofa, Dawakin Kudu and others, with the females amongst them coming through Taura Girls Science Secondary School and the like. The quality of the schools in those days was such that well over a hundred students from a single school would go on to enroll into the School of Basic Studies of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria to commence their pre-degree programme in a single year.
Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, a renowned Educationist, laid a solid foundation in revamping the ailing educational system in his two terms in office with recruitment of fresh qualified teachers while existing ones were trained and retrained. He installed a transparent system of procurement of teaching materials and standardization of technical and vocational education to cater for much needed artisans in Kano.
Those lofty days may very well have long left us, it would seem, as a 2018 statistics of the Teachers Registration Council (TRC) Kano Zonal office revealed that a total of 26,154 teachers, representing 65.3% of teachers in primary schools in the state are not qualified to teach. In other words, only 13,899 teachers, representing 34.7% of the total of 40,053 teachers under the payroll of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) at the time are registered and certified by the TRC.
What this means is that the number of teachers in the state is far less than adequate in terms of both quality and quantity to cover the total estimated number of 3,183,696 pupils enrolment in primary schools, according to available records from Kano State educational agencies. This places the teacher to pupils ratio at 1:79, and breaking it down into qualified teacher to pupils ratio brings it down to 1:229, with the unqualified teacher to pupils ration being 1:122.
In the same report, available data from the Kano State Secondary Schools Board put the figure of students and teachers in the state public secondary schools in the state at 493,257 and 16,482 respectively. Of the 16,482 teachers on government payroll, 10,996, representing 66.7% are not qualified to teach, while a dismal 5,486, representing 33.3% are qualified to teach. The combined figure for primary and secondary teachers stood at 56,535, out of which only 19,385 or 34.3% possess the basic minimum requirement for teaching, with the remainder of 37,150, representing 65.7% not qualified to teach.
There is no evidence to suggest that these dismal statistics have significantly changed since then.
A sound primary and secondary education remains the sine qua non and basic foundation for proceeding to the university to obtain a degree in the various disciplines. More often than not, however, the major determining factor between a life full of promise and a lifetime in peril or uncertainty rests not only on a student’s inherent potential but on the quality of the local public school.
With the prevailing state of affairs in our educational sector in Kano State being the way they are today, the stakes couldn’t be higher, as the students in our primary and secondary schools sure do not have to continue to suffer the negative fallouts of the fate that has befallen them for no fault of theirs. We must devise ingenious and practical ways to raise the quality of education in our state and use it to break the perennial cycle of poverty and violence amongst our young and impressionable minds, each and every one of whom deserves the same opportunities that were freely available to us when we were of their age.
We must, therefore, strive to turn around the situation by investing massively in revamping primary and secondary education as a deliberate policy. It has been estimated that a One Billion Naira annual increment in primary education can boost its standard by 34% in terms of teacher training, retraining and professional development, instructional materials, school enrolment and school infrastructure.
Likewise, another One Billion Naira investment in primary education would raise secondary school enrolment by almost 37%, thereby increasing both the teaching profession and the output of pupils, who would expectedly be better equipped for post primary and secondary level education.
Conversely, and sadly too, with all the glaring evidence of the continuing violence happening daily around us of late, we are also living witnesses to the huge price that whole communities often pay when our school system fails.
In neighbourhoods and communities where out-of-school children and school dropouts choose to join violent gangs, the sense of urgency in pushing through with the agenda of promoting equal access to quality education for the teeming young ones becomes even more imperative.
That said, I hold the strong view that as daunting as the task ahead of us might otherwise seem, the myriad problems currently plaguing our educational system are not insurmountable. I, therefore, believe they can be progressively and comprehensively solved with the right attitude and committed leadership, working collectively with the parents, school administrators and teachers in all wards and local governments across the state, and I urge us all to commit to work together towards making that dream a reality.
Bashir writes from Kano
