Even if education has no precise meaning, when adequately implemented, it should usher in civilization unto a people, build character, and intellectually arm them to solve problems that would devolve upon them as a people. As imperative for growth, the present educational system in Nigeria has eluded the people, failed to modify behavior, and can never influence attitudes or bring about change the way it is. Hiding under the word "education," we have tried to cover up the realities of our existence and failed to face the realities of life.
Without African philosophy in education, Nigeria's expensive private schools — like the poorly run public ones that lack humanizing qualities — will have little or no impact on achieving meaningful educational outcomes. Our curriculum being counter-productive, there is the fragmentation of instructions imbibed not deliberately but assuredly by the Eurocentric education method, which keeps the youths further westernized and unfit for Nigerian purposes. The curriculum develops a sense of superiority and a deeply rooted belief in special privileges for an elite group, making education mainly accessible to persons with money. The poor people, unfit to compete at any given level financially, are forced out of the school system. It goes that to retain the educational system as it is, is to keep wondering what is wrong with the society - why armed gangs and banditry, why corruption, why droves of youths seeking education abroad, why dependence on foreign experts, why lack of manufacturing, why no jobs, why rampant killings, why incessant kidnappings, why tribalism, why JAPA syndrome, why dysfunctional system, why disorganized people. By promoting education only for those with money, Nigeria will always see some children who drop out of the school system go from mere losers to major criminals. Provided this is not corrected at the root bases using African education, chaos, and criminality shall be long-lived in Nigeria.
Using European education to shape Nigerians into becoming, unfortunately, puppets, with all undue external influences, has proved so unbefitting. There are serious issues of letdown and rejection of Nigerian credentials locally and internationally by many who regard her credentials with suspicion. Bribery for pass marks, inadequate training, incompetence, outright forgery of documentation, or sheer dislike for Nigerian persons are the common reasons for Nigerian misgivings internationally. There is no assurance that primary school kids have been unmissably nurtured at the grassroots, given adequate child psychology, aptitude, reading comprehension, guidance, intelligence, and achievement testing (IQ). This difficulty at the primary level is a definite and direct check on what goes on in Nigeria's secondary and tertiary levels. There is a failure in secondary schools to extend vocational training and apprenticeship guidance for students who may want to depart the school system after secondary school. We cannot find a justification, as it is, to exempt secondary and tertiary education from lacking motivation, boring class instructions, mechanical time- limiting schedules, inadequate materials of instructions, and not teaching most subjects well enough. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is emphasized partly because most tertiary institutions are out of touch with reality. Even though Nigerians cannot rely on JAMB, the JAMB cut-off marks (140 – 200) are given more weight than personality development or character molding. JAMB process guarantees no sound education - not in the quality of candidates taken into the liberal schools, nor in the output of those who may claim to have graduated a few years later. The issue of non-suitable curricula was made worse by the wrong philosophy inherent in education, and our persistent reliance on foreign experts for road paving, bridge construction, or infrastructure maintenance is attributed to how badly we are trained. Suppose we sum up all other political, economic, and religious problems education could have tamed, we will be more perturbed to admit that our failure as a people is caused by this widely disproportionate education that continues to sway and rob us of our culture, morales, knowledge of self, and the power of our being. With this education, Nigerians can never stand shoulder to shoulder with the world, much less eradicate problems that bedevil them locally - corruption, food shortages, insecurity of lives, armed banditry, cultism, terrorism, kidnapping, etc.
The proposition for reconstruction is for all science and research to be directed to intertribal cooperation and to assure sound and intelligent progress of the nation. We suggest reconstruction because we want to align our objective with the quiet revolution in the thinking of our youths, who are seeking another kind of education, mainly for developing character and service for the common welfare of the Nigerian people.
