COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT THE END OF A RADIO TOWN HALL MEETING AGAINST CORRUPTION, ORGANISED BY THE PROGRESSIVE IMPACT ORGANIZATION FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (PRIMORG). 

BACKGROUND TO DELIBERATIONS

The Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development (PRIMORG) with support from the MacArthur Foundation held a town hall meeting against corruption on November 12th, 2020. The theme of the town hall meeting was; THE IMPACT OF CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA’S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AND HOW THE NATION CAN CHANGE THE UGLY NARRATIVE. The meeting was also used to celebrate an outstanding teacher and public servant, Mrs Kacheilom Bertram Roberts-Ndukwe. She is a 2019 Integrity Icon, renowned for fighting corruption including the investigation and exposure of a ghost worker in her school. Her intervention also helped in ensuring school fees of students who were about to write the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) were not increased in her school.

Other participants and speakers at the meeting looked at the falling standard of education in Nigeria occasioned by corruption, its negative impacts and proffered solutions on how Nigeria can change the ugly narrative.

The participants include: Eyong Sunday Eyong, Business Development Coordinator at Oxfam; Dr Sam Amadi, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Public and International Law At Baze University; Davidcrown Oyebisi, Founder and Executive Director, Centre for Educational Empowerment and Orientation; Christy Imudia, Proprietress of Excellent Kiddies Montessori Academy Bwari, Abuja, and Prince Chimaraoke Chukwuka, Representative of Accountability Lab Nigeria.

In the course of deliberation, participants at the town hall meeting noted the following:

– The family is the primary place for molding persons of integrity.

– To build a better society, parents and guardians must understand that they are responsible for inculcating the right values in their children or wards.

– Corruption in public school only possible when there is collaboration between top and low ranked officers.

– Corruption has caused massive damage to Nigeria’s educational sector.

– Majority of top public office holders, political class and elites in Nigeria don’t have their children in public schools.

– Welfare of Nigerian teachers’ lowly prioritized by the political leadership of the country, past and present.

– Nigerian teachers are still using obsolete teaching methods and tools.

– Nigerian students are taught more theories with very little practical knowledge.

– Parents and guardians encouraging corruption in public and private schools through bribery.

– Corruption in the educational sector will make Nigeria very unproductive in every sector if not checked.

– Certificate falsification now the order of the day in Nigeria.

– About 50 percent of Nigerians are in authority using fake certificates.

– Corruption in the educational sector will make Nigeria very unproductive in every sector if not checked.

– Examination mal-practice is high in senior secondary classes.

– Nigeria’s poor educational rating internationally, worrisome and embarrassing.

– Poor funding of education in Nigeria feeds corruption.

– Mediocrity has been democratized in Nigeria’s educational system.

 

CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION

– Government must focus on improving teachers welfare, as well as organising training and retraining programmes.

– Certificate racketeering should attract capital punishment.

– The Federal Government should set up a system that inspects integrity and discipline in the educational sector.

– The Federal Government of Nigeria must take urgent steps in rebuilding the education sector.

– Skills acquisition should be made a top priority by governments.

– There should be subsidies for brilliant students from poor backgrounds to go to school.

– Nigeria is due for a national curriculum conference.

– All hands need to be on deck to strangle corruption in the educational sector

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