In my second year at the University of Ife in 1979, two students from the Federal Government College, Kano joined the Faculty of Arts. Awam Ampah and Funso Alabi fitted in perfectly. I was so impressed that when I went for youth service in Kano, one of the first places I familiarized myself with was the school, along Zaria road. You may understand the sadness I felt when I learnt that the Tinubu administration wants to auction 33 hectares or forty percent of the school lands to a Pluck Global Construction Company for commercial purposes. The Government claims its prodigal moves are to provide funds for upgrading infrastructure within the institution. If this were a rational and sensible reasoning, then virtually all federal government education institutions including universities who all suffer the disease of government neglect and virtual abandonment, would need to be sold.
Is it politically, economically or morally acceptable for a government that is neither building schools nor funding them, to start selling their assets? In these times of serious insecurity with the Tinubu administration incapable of protecting schools against bandits and terrorists, does it make sense for it to bring in companies to build commercial and private structures on well allocated and secured school lands? Yes, the future of our battered and underdeveloped country may not appear bright, but supposing it changes for the better and schools like FGC, Kano need expansion or upgrading, is it at that point we would need to reprocess lands stolen in the name of providing funds for them? Another point is, what type of logic warrants a supposedly literate and patriotic government to seek auctioning lands worth over N36 billion for a paltry N8.5 billion? If the historical mission and religion of the Tinubu regime is to auction public property including school lands, shouldn’t it put them on public auction for all interested bidders?
In seeking to auction the school lands, the Tinubu administration strives to give the impression that it is interested in education. If this were so, it would have made strides in reducing the figure of the over 18.3 million out-of-school in the country. It would have prioritized education funding rather than allocating N15 trillion to a coastal road that had no bidding, budget or conclusive construction plans. I had wondered what kind of mindset could have led to this attitude to education. That was until I read the philistine plans of Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa that the Tinubu administration would cut courses in the social sciences and the arts because they allegedly, do not lead to employment. Minister Alausa at the Renewed Hope Conversations, the University of Abuja, told students: “We are training you not to be job seekers but entrepreneurs. A lot of you doing social science courses, with all due respect to you, there are not going to be jobs for you in the future.”
He revealed that the Tinubu administration had consequently finalized plans to axe such programmes and align the education system with supposed labour market demands. The Minister announced that such allegedly outdated programmes, would be replaced with those that would better equip students with practical skills.
Minister Alausa’s concept of commerce as the end product of education and, the illiterate Singerr, Katangua or Onitsha market trader’s concept of money as the end product of education, are same. This is why the illiterate trader would query; who education help? In other words, what is the use of education to the country but as a certificate for employment? However, education is not commerce, it is social. John Dewey, the United States education reformer defined education: “as the process of the reconstruction of experience, giving it a more socialized value through the medium of increased individual efficiency” This can come from additionally horning particular skills like Alausa did by going through medical school. This is why the typical tertiary institution insists that the student should not only pass through it, but the institution should also pass through the student. Clearly, the University of Lagos did not pass through Dr. Alausa.
The reason why we have a Ministry of Education is not primarily for literacy, but the holistic cultural development of the society and humanity. For instance, Alausa may not realize that history which was banned for decades in Nigeria, is fundamental to human development and training. All human endeavour and training including medicine has a history, same as the history of engineering or a people. It is not the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM that would save Nigeria from unemployment. It is the ordering and running of society in a people-centred system. We have mass unemployment because our economy has been run by politicians and soldiers as an import -dependent one in which industries collapse and we import products like tyres which we used to produce.
Let me present a graphic case. In 1997, I made a research in the textile and garment industry. It employed over 500,000 workers. About ten years ago, a research I made showed that our textile workforce had dwindled to 24 ,000! The reason is that while our population that was 116.7 million was serviced by dozens of textile companies especially in Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and Aba, today, our population which is double that number, relies on imported textiles and second hand garments. The anti-people programmes imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF and, implemented by subsequent governments, ensure that our industries collapse. So, even if we encourage students to study textiles, there are no jobs for them.
The problem for instance in the footwear and leather industry is not due to our 230 million citizens not wearing footwear. Rather, it is because the policies being implemented by various governments including that of Tinubu, discourage local production even when our country produces leather. So, the problem in Nigeria is not whether students study the social sciences or STEM, but the system we run. For instance, many of Alausa’s professional colleagues in medicine desperately seek employment outside the country even if it would lead to their being enslaved in countries like Saudi Arabia. This is not because of the courses they read, but due to the way and manner, people like Alausa minister to the needs of the country. Is Alausa not ashamed as Education Minister and a medical doctor with a 33-year post qualification experience that whenever our dear President Bola Tinubu needs medical attention, he flies to France? The policies on education reveal that Education Minister Alausa and his fellow travelers are half educated which was why Alexander Pope warned in his 1711 submission: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
