AdminBy Elijah Akuma, Geraldine Anyanwu, Success Chisom Ezeobi and Ugochi Okoro
Over the years, education has proven to be the bedrock of national development in all parts of the world. However, in Nigeria, its standard has, due to several factors, pathetically continued to fall as various indices indicate.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelAccording to a World Bank report, Nigeria’s literacy rate was 62% in 2018. As of 2020, approximately 68% of the youth in Nigeria had received secondary education. This was the highest level of education they had reached. Around 15% of them had completed primary education. 17% of Nigerian youth pursued higher studies after secondary education. Reports indicate that 31% of the population is illiterate.
In this age of digital communication revolution, there are indications that many students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria have in recent years recorded poor performance in academics. This raises perplexing questions as to what could be the likely cause?
The need to look into the current status of students’ academic performance led Prime Business Africa correspondents to seek answers.
In an interview, with Prime Business Africa, Prof. Onuoha Freedom, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), said that “between 2016 and 2023, there has been a meteoric decline in the standard of students’ academic performance.”
He noted that the yardstick for measuring this may differ depending on what one is considering. Though he was quick to point out that the data may show that those who get second-class and first-class are higher now when compared to what was obtainable before, he maintained that a lot of factors may contribute to it. He said it may be that people’s corrupt ways of gaining marks may have become more pronounced now than before.
He also, lamented about the poor ratio of lecturers to students in recent times, adding that it is very alarming. Lecturers, he said, have a lot of students to handle at a time, which makes it hard for them to adequately guide students in the learning process.
According to him, over 80% of students do not write their projects themselves due to the lack of knowledge and dedication to carry out appropriate research on their topics.
Another reason for the decline, according to him, is primarily Politics – a situation where people with a lack of interest or value for having good educational standards in the country are elected into positions of power. He said: “The worst thing that has happened to this country is electing leaders who are not educated. They have no interest, plan or value for education. The kind of leaders we had, especially after Jonathan are the ones that never prioritized or valued education. This is because the attainment of the highest level of political power and office had nothing to do with education in terms of certificates, they think it is entirely useless. This is successfully being passed to the younger generation.”
“If the salaries of professors are compared to what politicians are paid, one will shed tears. The politics of it is that those who control power are always at constant loggerheads with the intellectual crop of society as encapsulated in the ASUU issue. ASUU thinks that brain, ideas, and knowledge should lead society and that society should appreciate and emulate it accordingly; these people do not process it that way because for them once they seize power, they can turn their village into paradise overnight.”
The second point he emphasized was the national politics that corrupts the micro-politics which is at the level of University management. He said: “Before, the vice Chancellor was almost immune from the federal political system, but now, the vice Chancellor is an extension of the party in power at the federal level. Unlike before, the vice Chancellor is no longer insulated from the macro national politics. So the vice Chancellor becomes almost by extension, the vassal of the president.”
He frowned at how politicians have hijacked the decision-making power on who becomes the Vice Chancellor of a university.
While lamenting that the intellectual class in the country have been neglected, Prof. Onuoha added that because the academic system is drastically falling in universities, many lecturers are not even interested anymore in supervising students.
The situation forces lecturers to devise a coping strategy; which involves prioritizing any other source of making money including going deep into consultancy which gives them higher pay to take care of their basic needs and families. These make the system produce mediocre, as high fliers no longer produce their likes.
He further asserted that as part of a coping strategy, others write books and pressure their students to buy them irrespective of their peculiar and intellectual value. Thus, books are then given as a condition to acquire grades, no longer knowledge. Lecturers are owed, the politics helps to kill their moral conscience, he stated.
The third coping mechanism is sorting which he said didn’t start today but has gained prominence in the country’s tertiary educational system. The educational system in Nigeria get so bad as a result of weak and bad educational policies made by political leaders in Nigeria.
The next cause of the decline in the educational system is the pattern of staff recruitment in Nigerian universities. The university don noted that even in the worst situations, geniuses still emerge. Before, the pattern of recruitment in Nigerian universities was not done in the market-oriented way or the private business or corporate business-oriented way of recruitment which is throwing open available positions to the general public.
Prof. Onuoha explained that the university system operates in gradualism, identification, and replacement of gaps. One major principle is what we called the ‘right of first refusal’ given to the best for every set. “So usually, when the university system was working perfectly in Nigeria, once you get a first-class, you have the right of first refusal, the department will definitely ask for you to be retained as against what is obtainable now where the first-class graduates do the asking and yet, won’t be taken, but a 3rd class student would be taken because his or her father is a professor and thinking that there’s an automatic transmission of knowledge because once your father is a professor, you are a good academic and then you’re knowledgeable.
He said: “Education is not dying in Nigeria, the last time I checked, it was dead, it’s about the undertakers that will bury it. Education is gone. Politics in Nigeria is worse than the devil; it destroys everything it touches.
“The University system started dying faster than a body infected by cancer when politics set in. It’s no more recruitment by competence but who knows who. He lamented over the sad situation by quoting Charles Soludo’s rhetorical question in one of his speeches “Who will teach my child?” Because he couldn’t see academics, who would teach the forthcoming generation with the look of things currently.
He is of the opinion that the decline in the academic standard is a problem of nature and nurture. “As soon as students leave their individual families, we take over as lecturers for nurture. This is fundamental to students’ academic performance. It seems the mediocre are high in number in our system today, so they keep on surviving by substandard criteria, they keep on lowering the bar and expect to raise high fliers.”
“For the students, the continuous decline thrive because we operate in a society where sanctions no longer count. Materialism is now the order of the day. Intelligent students who come from humble homes find it difficult to cope because of financial difficulty while the Yahoo yahoos (as he called them) now buy over lecturers for grades. The majority of the students have been overwhelmed by the philosophy of ‘Who does education help?’ Most of the students in the universities now are yahoo boys and they buy their grades with money. Students are more interested in entertainment. Many of them look forward to the day they will be signing off, even when they have several references. They spend money to celebrate signing off even when they have no content.”
He further explains that this generation has been positioned to think that life is easy; nobody wants to fail. They just want to succeed in all they do and if they fail at any point, depression sets in and suicide records goes high. The standard of education is drastically dropping because of the alarming population of students now admitted into schools beyond what the schools can carry”.
Another Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication UNN, Prof. Ukonu, who spoke to Prime Business Africa, echoed a similar position that though the number of first-class and second-class graduates has increased as against what it was some years back, the value has dropped.
He said a lot of factors are responsible for the turn of things.
According to Prof. Ukonu, “Grades are core indicators of students’ academic performance. Again, students’ own assessment of their learning conditions across times, and technical staff are all factors to be considered.
“The academic performance of students in recent times has obviously changed. It is necessary to put performance in context because the quantity of first-class and second-class graduates has drastically increased now than five years ago and this has something to do with the number of intakes and associated graduates. But if it’s about what students did and know before when compared to now, the performance has really gone down. The capacity for independent study and research in recent times has drastically reduced as well.
“Possible causes of these changes are multifaceted. From the angle of the students, the drive to learn has gone down. The zest and enthusiasm of the students have been severed as a result of the classroom condition where the students are overpopulated in a very small class with poorly equipped infrastructure. The hostel accommodation is bad. Before there was a food subsidy for students but today, it’s absent. Some students combine learning with work just to foot their bills; the worsening economic condition in the country has also affected purchasing power and the capacity of parents to help students to be a bit more comfortable while going to school; all these contribute to pressure which in turn, affect students’ academic performance in school.”
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He advised that to improve this, first, the facilities have to be upgraded to provide comfort for learners during the learning process. Secondly, harness the opportunities in ICT to create virtual experiences for learners. Thirdly, poor salary payments are contributive factors that affect students’ academic performance. Lecturers will not be as effective as they should be with poor payment even in the face of economic hardship. Lecturers’ salaries should be improved.”
Also, in an interaction with Prime Business Africa, an Exam Officer in one of the departments in UNN, who didn’t want his name mentioned, explained that students cannot have good performance as expected in a situation where they have a short period of a semester.
“There cannot be improvement in a semester that is run within a short period of time. In a semester that is supposed to run for three months but is shortened to one month, how do you expect a good performance? How possible is it? Lecturers and students are not even balanced to give and receive full lectures respectively.
“And as for my department, we are doing well. At times, we graduate first-class or second-class upper. We cannot compare the performance of the recent with that of the past. It is untrue to say we are moving forward.”
He called for an extension of the period of lectures and students should be allowed to have adequate time for revision before exams. “With this, students’ academic performance will improve. The school management should increase the standard so that when students graduate, they will be able to compete with others,” he advised.
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He also expressed concerns that the state of the economy and school fees increment has led many students to drop out of school. “If the government refuses to fund the educational system, how do you get what you want? How will you get facilities for lecturing?” he queried.
“Many will want to go to school but cannot afford it, even the student loan is not realizable. If the economy is good and education is well funded, nobody will like to travel outside the country for masters and Ph.D. People are ready to travel outside the country for greener pastures. The economy is not helping the educational system at all,” he further stated.
A pharmacist, Collins Onyeto, who is also a lecturer in the Pharmacy Faculty at UNN, asserted that there is a very big drawback in students’ performance and many things contribute to that. “Starting with, students, students are not passionate about their education again, they see it as the necessary requirements they need for societal acceptance and acceptance for work. Many students just want to enter school for their certificate without allowing the knowledge to pass through them. Many Students see education as a scam. At the end of the day, they can’t measure up with their mates outside.”
He emphasized that Students are also concerned about the rate of unemployment in the country, thus many students engage in all manner of things to make money.
“They don’t come to class or even sit down to read, there is a poor reading culture. Students are now eager to make money before they leave school. They are prone to engage in societal vices just to make money. Some are even ready to financially induce staff to get good grades and of course, Social media is also taking a large amount of their time. During our time, students with good results like first class come back to teach others but this is not so now. They now rely on exam malpractices using technological means. The decline of students’ academic performance is increasing alarmingly.”
“Not forgetting, Parents push their children to go for courses they have an interest in. Not everybody will go to school. Some parents push their children to school without providing the necessary resources, their children will end up engaging in a lot of businesses and illicit activities to meet up with school fees. Students don’t have time to study. The government and the school management are also contributing to the problems, with no basic amenities like hostels for students. The majority of the students stay off campus. Lecturers, in the process of making ends meet, travel outside the country because there is no proper remuneration and there is no conducive environment to provide lectures for students. Lecturers are struggling.”
Continuing, he stated: “During my time, we devoted time to study and came out with good results that we are proud of. This is not to say that there are no good students now but they are not like before. Then, we have a good culture of reading and researching. We also depended solely on what we got from our parents, we were contented with what we got from them. This is not so now, students don’t depend on their parents now, and some parents don’t know what their children are doing in school. Exam malpractice is now obtained in this generation, they are mostly concerned about obtaining certificates. The previous performance is far better he added.
About the remuneration structure of lecturers he he disclosed that “15 years ago, I served as a graduate assistant, now known as assistant lecturer, was receiving ₦98,000 then but is now receiving ₦114,000 – ₦120,000. Lecturer 2 received ₦130,000, Lecturer 1 received ₦160,000 – ₦180,000, Senior Lecturers receive ₦243,000; Associate Prof receive ₦260,000 -₦280,000 at entry level, new professors receive ₦320,000. Then after 10 years, your salary will not be increased again. It doesn’t exceed ₦500,000.”
“With the salary structure, the lecturer need to get fuel regularly to come for lectures. During the strike, many lecturers sold their cars to buy commercial vehicles. Some had to sell their properties, majority entered into farming. Lecturers hardly come to office, no money for fuel, they are struggling to even feed their families. I do this lecturing job because of passion in teaching students. Before, as a senior lecturer, you get to other schools for adjoining lecturing but lecturers have been stopped from going to other schools to lecture. A lecturer who is not patient and passionate cannot endure all of these. Some resign before retiring, he claimed.
He advised that to improve students academic performance, the government need to attach importance to education. “There is need to overhaul the curriculum. When I watched a WhatsApp video, African countries were crying that they have resources like gold and others but their students are not studying about these things but students abroad are taught to learn these things, come to Africa and manage them. Nigeria Government should concentrate on educating students, they are interested in power and have neglected education. If the universities are not researching and developing, there will be no improvement,” he asserted.
Onyeto believes that there are seasons for everything and advised students to be patient and dedicated to their studies.
“There is a foundation and harvest time but nowadays, students want to harvest without laying the foundation. No matter how bad a situation is, something good will still come out of it. Students should be patient and define what they want in life. The issue of ‘my mates are doing this, I want to do it’ is not the best. After discovering their purpose, the students should find out what they can do to achieve it. Patience, hard work, consistency, and intentionality are also needed. They should also be ready to put in the necessary sacrifices to get what they want and be patient enough”.
Time Management Affects Students’Academic Performance
Nnoruka Chukwuemelie, a 300-level student from the Department of Philosophy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the major challenge for them is time management. According to him, due to past strikes which disrupted the academic calendar, the time allotted for each semester these days is short, making students unable to cover all that they needed to study to do well in exams and come out with good results.
The basic challenge is the issue of time management. This is because considering the shortness of the semester and the session, it becomes a bit difficult to exhaust what you need in order to perform very well in your academics. For example, albinitio we had weeks for revision before exams, but considering what we have now, particularly for this third year, we are writing exams and assignments at the same time.
“It is a serious challenge because something like an assignment is when you have to stay back at home, take your time and do it very well to get your mark, but when you’re now writing exams and assignments on the same day under two hours that is meant for exams only, you can’t manage it at all. No matter how good you are, it must affect how excellent that assignment or that exam would be. And when you’re battling with finishing up assignments and filling out workbooks, preparation for exams comes in immediately. The most basic challenge I can say for now is the fact that there is no time and it actually takes somebody that has mastered time management to actually thrive in this season.”
He, however, noted that basically, it is proper time management, that has aided his academic performance. “I have to cut off so many things because I don’t have time.”
He also noted that an increase in school fees coupled with economic hardship in the country equally affects students’ performance.
Speaking on the possible solutions, he said: “the management should consider the wellbeing of the lecturers and their welfare because some of these things we see are just transfer of aggression. If they are being taken care of, at least even if it will not be entirely eliminated, it should be brought to the barest minimum because we know that there are people who are naturally wicked.
“If they take into consideration the welfare of the staff, some of the things coming up can actually have a stand to address them and then they can now get students’ opinions on some things and bring them to dialogue and consideration. Even though they may not have all it takes to eliminate it because of the hardness of things there will be a way to bring it to the barest minimum where 50 to 60% of students can be able to cope.”
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