Re: Sad news from Malaysia

Re: Sad news from Malaysia
One of the shocking aspects of our life in the contemporary Nigerian society is waking up each day to be faced with another twist or addition to our existing heaps of problems. Prof. Brainy’s ‘Sad news from Malaysia’ (Weekly Trust, March 21 & 28) is another of such shocking daily realities of our lives. With decaying educational system and the failure of our government to find lasting solutions to that, some parents resorted to taking their children to other countries of the world for sound and best education. Nobody can blame any parent for finding the best for their children. But the rate at which our University System is deteriorating and the activities of Nigerian children in Malaysia and other countries is food for thought for all of us.
It is important to understand that there is nothing wrong for Nigerians to go overseas for further education, but most parents take their children off the shores because they have been left with little or no option. We all know the rot that took over our universities, from poor infrastructure, lack of teaching and research facilities and more disturbing, lack of qualified or shortage of staff. The universities in Nigeria are mere shadows of their former selves. It is a problem we know is facing us, we see it daily, but there is nothing one can do about it.
Nigeria has reached a stage where people like Prof. Brainy is afraid[?] to proffer solutions on how to revive our educational system so that our children will no longer be taken to Malaysia for a university degree because he feels he might be considered as too idealistic. Instead he prefers to give temporary solutions to the problems. If we are able to manage our universities well, can any parent think of taking his child to a third world country like Malaysia for an undergraduate study? Parents should panic, especially those who prefer to pilfer the nation’s resources meant for education and use it to pay exorbitant prices as tuition fees for their children overseas, in this way developing the education system of other countries.
Is it not a shame that a country like Malaysia will be the one to host Nigerian children for their undergraduate study because on our part we failed to sustain our educational system? Since the 1970s, with population explosion and competition to fill the few spaces available and with the reduction of government subvention to universities, and the continued establishment of new universities due to political reasons, the components which make-up a world class university like quality facilities, curriculum, access, funding, competition, infrastructure, faculty, and diversity cease to exist in virtually all Federal Universities.
To me that is where our focus should be. What is the use of spending millions of naira to sponsor a single child for an undergraduate study in Malaysia, while the same amount, if judiciously used can help in training ten here in Nigeria? I think the focus should not be on advising parents to have guardians that will monitor their children in far away Malaysia; rather it should be how this new trend should be stopped. Prof. majority of these children that study in Malaysia are the children of well to do, mostly top government officials and technocrats; don’t you think that if they can change their attitudes towards governance and accountability becomes their watch-word, we need not to worry about sending our children overseas for undergraduate study.
Prof. Nigeria is in crisis and few, if any within the corridors of power realise the magnitude of this crisis. How I wish you followed the BBC a karkara programme recently. This is the reality of Nigeria and nobody cares. The National Assembly is busy legislating on issues that have little or no direct bearing on people. Our governors are worst; don’t even talk of members of State Assembly or Local Government Chairmen.
Today, as we entered our 49th year of nationhood few Nigerians will tell where the country is heading to, we lost focus and direction as a nation, and we don’t know our priorities, one can confidently say that there is no such thing as democracy in Nigeria, because our past as well as our present history has become so interwoven into crises, which has often left us in constant struggle for survival. Our leaders have toiled with our educational system, which at the long run, the money voted to ran the programmes ended in the pockets of corrupt politicians and their cronies. While 4million children according to UNESCO have no access to basic education, the few lucky ones that are in school are given sub-standard education.
Something is wrong, when a single individual can steal billions of naira meant for education, for health care and that same individual can be applauded because he built a mosque or church in his community. Until and unless we redirect what our priorities are and we stop deceiving ourselves and have the feeling that Nigeria is our country and we have no other country like Nigeria, what we are seeing will continue for the next century.
Therefore, what we need is not telling parents to find guardians for their children in Malaysia, but to tell them to try and do something in order to revive our educational system. By doing that it not only accommodates our children, but their children also. Then may be, they will have the opportunity to monitor their children in A.B.U Zaria, Ife, Ibadan or Nsukka first-hand.
Kabiru Danladi,
Area 11, Garki,
Abuja.
kblondon2003@yahoo.com
08054546764, 08035150369