How long does it take to declare a missing person dead? As December 2015 prepares to close its eyes for a new year, 2016, it brings back sad memories of the 219 schoolgirls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State by the Boko Haram sect.
Spending over 625 days in the den with armed insurgents is like a foretaste of hell for the poor girls. Few days to the end of 2015, the wind of change touted by the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to set the captives free.
But it is not yet time to give up hope. In fact, hope burns eternally in the hearts and minds of people like Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, Nigeria’s former Minister of Education, and later of Solid Minerals, who is at the forefront of championing the cause of the missing girls. “The light of our girls shall shine on,” she noted in a post on her Twitter account, on December 19. “There is no basis to stop hoping.”
While Nigerians hopefully waited for the return of Chibok schoolgirls, a different horror befell Government Girls Secondary School, Jogana, located, some 20 kilometers from the city of Kano, on Sunday, November 29, 2015. Seven female students of the school were roasted to death, while 21 others were seriously injured in a midnight inferno that erupted in one of the school’s hostels, the biggest. The cause of the fire which occurred while the students were sleeping, is yet to be ascertained at the time of this writing but sources at the Murtala Mohammed Hospital, Kano where the students were rushed to, for treatment, said that most of the students died of suffocation and stampede, not burns.
A tragic incident occurred at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), where a power cable that broke off from an electric pole electrocuted Miss Oluchi Anekwe, a 400-level Accountancy student. Her sudden death gave some insight into the rot in physical infrastructures in public varsities and sowed the seed of rebellion on campus. Few weeks later, riotous students closed down the university in protest against the infestation of halls of residence by blood-thirsty bedbugs.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015. Tragedy struck again when few weeks to the end of the year, bullets from the guns of some unnamed soldiers called in to help stop the protest by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) suddenly flew in from Gods-knows-where and struck dead Miss Anthonia Nkeiruka Ikeanyionwu, a 200 level of Educational Management and Policy, Federal College of Education (Technical), Umunze, Anambra State, leaving her in a pool of blood.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015. Adamu Adamu, the new Minister of Education and Prof. Anthony Gozie Anwuka, Minister of State for Education, were sworn in by President Buhari. President Muhammadu Buhari came under harsh criticism for assigning Mallam Adamu, a journalist and columnist, who is not an educationist, to oversee the nation’s ailing education sector.
For Adamu, reputed for his glorious days as a journalist and fearless newspaperman, heading the education sector seemed like learning how to crawl when people expect you to run. Will he deliver? Can he address the many problems buffeting the education sector? These are some of the questions on the lips of doubting educationists and stakeholders.
But Prof. Peter Okebukola, former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), believes that Adamu can handle the job because he is passionate about education.
“Our current Minister of Education has a passion for education even though he does not have the qualification,” he observes. “And when I look at his background, he is somebody who has courage and high intellect. In the past we’d had people too who were not in education and they did very well.”
One area the new Minister will need to prove critics wrong is in contending headlong with the poor rating of the nation’s education sector by the international community. Nigeria failed to reach any of the global education goals. This bewildering revelation is contained in the 2015 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR), released on April 9 by UNESCO in Paris, France.
Nigeria was listed among sub-Saharan African countries that fell below expectations in improving the lives of their children educationally. More distressing was the declining performance of students in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination Examinations Council (WAEC) released recently. Statistics revealed that 70.67% failed English, Mathematics in Nov/Dec WASSCE.
The score sheet in public exam across the country has continued to nosedive. Only 67,713 candidates, representing 29.33 per cent obtained credits in five subjects and above, including English Language and Mathematics. The statistics indicates that above 70 per cent who sat the WASSCE did not obtain five credits, including English and Mathematics.
Comparatively, in November/December 2014 WASSCE, 246,853, out of candidates who sat for the exams, only 72,522 candidates, representing 29.37 per cent, obtained credits in five subjects, including Mathematics and English Language. This implied that there was a decline in performance when compared with the previous year.
The crisis at Lagos State University (LASU) dragged on for several months in the year under review. The embattled Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Obafunwa, was hounded out of the campus by aggrieved staff unions, and the administrative block where his office is located, locked and laced with charms for over seven months. Reprieve came following Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s refusal to renew his tenure, but he appointed in his stead, an acting Vice Chancellor in the person of Prof. Fidelis Njokanma.
Unlike past years, marred by incessant strike actions and trade disputes, staff unions of tertiary institutions sheathed their swords this year. But this peace was ruptured by the recent threat by the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), to embark on indefinite strike over a directive by the Federal Government to universities to retrench workers of University Staff Schools.
The National President of the association, Mr. Samson Ugwoke, said failure by the government to honour the agreement between it and SSANU on the schools would compel the association to declare an indefinite strike. He said that the directive to retrench the workers emanated from a circular written on behalf of the Federal Government by the Minister of Education. He warned that the implementation of such harsh directive to over 30 universities will send workers into the unemployment market.
Whatever gloom that may have enveloped the education sector in 2015, there were flashes of joy and hope. Example is the case of 19-year-old Evance Ochuko Ivwurie Jnr, from Abraka in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, who emerged the youngest First Class graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom, by graduating with a First Class Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Economics and thus becoming the youngest graduate of the university, in the history of the 166-year-old university.
Evance, the son of Mr. Evance Ivwurie, a member representing Ethiope East Constituency in the Delta State House of Assembly, under the platform of the Labour Party (LP), became a shining star in our dark period.
Another youngster, Samuel Nder, a former student of Vaatia College, Markurdi, Benue State, set a new academic record when he emerged the best overall student in both the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Senior School Certificate Examination conducted by the National Examination Council (NECO).
The feat is remarkable in that since 1984 when WAEC started the award for the best candidates in WASSCE and since NECO did the same some years ago, this is the first time the same candidate has won both awards the same year.
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