Dr Mike Ene is the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT). He shares his thoughts and perspectives in this interview with TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE on a wide range of national issues on education. Excerpts:
HOW would you like to reflect on the just ended year?
2024 was not a good year for most Nigerians. No matter the language we use to describe it or sentiment we share, it was a year we cannot forget in a jiffy.
So many people would not have lost their lives if we were in a working system as a country. Two major policies of the Federal Government are the cause of our sufferings in this nation. Any policy that fails to put food on the table of the masses is not a people-oriented policy. So, the removal of fuel subsidy in 2023 and the devaluation of naira have really put many families in abject poverty. So, everything that happened last year revolved around these two policies and we are still battling with the negative effects. The costs of goods and services including transportation were extremely high for most people to cope with; the situation was simply unpalatable.
Many, including children, lost their lives in the process of struggling to get free foodstuffs which costs were not even up to N10, 000. There were a series of stampedes where free foods were being shared. This shows a high level of hunger in the land, and it has never been this bad.
Free food or money has always been but the level of desperation is alarming, the economic crisis has turned such a gesture to something else. There wasn’t news of a stampede in 2022 or 2023? No, the hunger level never got to this stage.
Some schools of thought have attributed the stampede incidents to greediness and not necessarily hunger, how do you react to this?
Yes, some people may actually be greedy but the bottom line of the various recent stampede incidents that occurred was that people were lacking some basic needs of life.
How do you think the government can best address this narrative?
It is simply by giving better attention to the education sector. It is only when the sector is well attended to that the country will experience an appreciable progress. When I visited Singapore; I was told that the crime rate in the country was 0.001 percent. I wondered what could have been the secret behind that. However, I learnt the magic was education. I was told that among the first three topmost priorities of the government is education and that was what was responsible for the infinitesimal crime ratio in the country.
It is only education that can bail us out of all these crises. Education is what makes someone realise that he or she should be a bad tool in the hands of politicians, die in their stead or go to the extent of carrying a bomb on the body and making it explode in the market space, killing innocent people. It is lack of education that will make a person use his/her children to beg for alms on the streets or be kidnapping people for ransom and so forth.
Considering this year’s national budget on education, is it the third largest following security and infrastructural development, how do you see this?
Yes, that is true, but that was not what we expected and that was why I said we are still playing politics with education as a country. It is not a bad idea to pump money into security but the underline issue is that as a country we haven’t been investing enough in education.
Education is a big deal globally, so, I think, the government should be able to allocate up to 15 percent of its total budget to education. This is why the 7.2 percent is like a drop of water in an ocean and won’t be able to address the overall interest of the citizens.
The truth is, it is only a well-funded education that can take us out of the high level of insecurity we are battling with. If we continue to give priority to security at the expense of education, we will continue to have security challenges as a nation. If the citizens are well-educated, equipped with the right skills and are provided with the enabling environments to thrive for economic activities, there will be great improvement.
If you were to set an agenda for the government this year on education, what will it be?
I will ask for three things. The first is about the curriculum. Our curriculum at the basic education level is jam-packed with too many subjects. I feel the curriculum should be about skills and practical knowledge in order to cause positive changes in the society. The curriculum should be shrunk to suit today’s needs -to train people to become self-employed and employers of labour and not office job seekers.
It is sad that more than 80 percent of fresh Nigerian university graduates are looking for paid employment rather than being job-creators. The government should tailor the curriculum at the basic level to change the current narrative.
Also, the government should look into the welfare of teachers. If the welfare package is good and teachers also are able to take good care of their families and meet up with other financial obligations in the society, they will do well on the work and in other legitimate engagements. These are factors that will attract the best brains to the teaching profession.
Has anyone heard about oil workers or Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staff carrying placards and protesting on the streets? They don’t, simply because they have good welfare packages and fantastic working conditions. There is nothing wrong if teachers can also enjoy the same. We are the mothers of other professionals, and we deserve the best treatment.
This request takes us to what my third agenda will be. It is to appoint the best hands to take up the teaching profession.
This will address the Japa (emigration) syndrome and also boost the economy. Also, the government should look into the idea of admitting JAMB candidates with the lowest scores such as 100 or 120 out of 400 marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). This practice should stop.
While students must score up to 280 to gain admission and study some certain courses in the university, why should anyone score between 100 and 120 to study education courses? The government must find ways to encourage healthy competition that will attract the best of brains to teaching jobs and then provide conducive environments for both the learners and teachers to thrive.
Nigeria is still burdened with the problem of out-of-school, how do you think this can be addressed?
It is about commitment at the various levels of governments, especially from the federal to the local levels. Recall what happened when some northern state governors profiled the Almajiri children in their states, sending the non-indigenes in the states to their respective states. In the same way, the federal government can prohibit street begging and hawking nationwide. When this is done, the number of out-of-school children will reduce drastically and will get to the barest minimum in the long run. It is also important to discourage people from giving birth to children they can’t take care of.
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