There is no denying the fact that quality education is expensive. Educational infrastructure often costs a fortune, as do the human resources that make quality education possible.
Following the uproar that greeted the decision of the federal government to increase the registration fee for WAEC and NECO from N27,000 to N50,000, the government backed down, deciding to maintain the old registration fees for now. As commendable as the decision was, it speaks of the kind of hastiness that underpins indecisiveness. Why didn’t the government consult widely before pronouncing the decision only to hastily beat a retreat when Nigerians railed against it?
As for those Nigerians who joined the chorus criticizing the decision, it is important to remember that good things don’t come cheap. In a country where poverty is used as a rod for everyone’s back, it is easy to chalk everything down to poverty while completely missing the point.
As far as education is concerned in Nigeria, the danger has long been clear that an entire generation now stands a real chance of missing out on the kind of quality education that crucially formed the backbone of the country as it sought to move on from years of debilitating colonialism.
Under the watch of successive Nigerian governments, public education has taken one devastating hit after the other. More than ever, poorly remunerated teachers standing in decrepit and crumbling classrooms have provided just the right amount of explosives that education has needed to explode in Nigeria.
To add to this catalogue of woes is the fact that a deleterious culture of examination malpractice seems to be finding its feet quickly among Nigerian schools and students. In many schools across Nigeria, examinations, including national examinations, have become experiments in express and egregious cheating, with indulgent students allowed to go all the way and malleable supervisors content to look away.
The situation and perception of public education in Nigeria have become so bad that many Nigerians now believe that formal education is a waste of time. Some Nigerian entertainers have exacerbated the situation by declaring in their songs that “school is a scam.”
Amidst this poor image of education in Nigeria, the temptation is strong to interpret every action of the government as an attempt to make the lives of Nigerians much harder. While this may be true, to think that is all there is to it would be a massive mistake.
There is simply no comparison between an educated mind and a mind that lacks education. The difference is like that which exists between light and darkness.
In a society obsessed with poverty as much as it is preoccupied with money, it has become unfortunately easy to conflate and compare education with being successful or lack of success. But that completely misses the point.
Education is the ultimate equalizer. More often than not, it is the difference between sound and scattered choices and can often mean just as much.
While the government should remain heavily invested in education, Nigerians should suspect the quality of any education that becomes too cheap because cheap things often have no value.
Kene Obiezu is a lawyer and writer