Hello buddies, welcome again to another history journey of Nigeria; the Africa's most populous nation. We have looked extensively at colonialism, amalgamation process and independence in our last episodes. However, there's one area we haven't touched yet and that's the educational sector. Here, we will look at the educational system of Nigeria and its development in the pre-independence and post-independence era.

Nigerian Educational System In Relation To National Development

You will agree with me that there is a correlation between the development of any nation and their educational system. Without missing words, education plays a very pivotal role in the development of any other sector in any nation and not just in Nigeria. Come to think of this; the great philosophy of both Egyptian and Greek descent were able to achieve posterity because the philosophers passed on their knowledge to the next generation through the system of education.

However, in Nigeria, before the colonial era and even before the contact with the wider world (the western world), the system of education was majorly informal. That is; the conventional classroom setting was largely uncommon, and the major part of the education was to acquire skills which included hunting, blacksmith, fishing etc. These skills acquired vary from community to community and on the overall, each community was self-sufficient even without formal education.

When contact was made with the missionary in the early 19th century, they brought many things with them, among them was the first formal school system. The first primary school established was done in 1843 by the Methodist Missionaries. By the mid 19th century (1859 to be precise), the first secondary school in Nigeria was established; CMS Grammar School; by the missionaries.

This was how the trail of modern education and schooling started in Nigeria. One thing to note about these early schools system was that, even though it brought formal education in Nigeria, the school however maintained a semi-formal system that time - this is because it was not completely void of moral indoctrination. However, it was free, as the missionaries bore the cost of running the school system.

Well, the school system quickly spread and gained mass adoption both from government and private individuals. More schools were created and the school system tilted more to becoming more formal and more specialized and also tailored to meet the needs of Nigerian populace.

However, many of the sectors of the economy were headed by foreigners - of course, that was prior to the independence of Nigeria.

Nigerian Educational System After the Independence

By the time Nigeria gained her independence, they soon realized their inadequacies in the educational sector and their gross lack of qualified academians and experts to handle both the educational sector and other sectors. This was the reason they sought ways to create a standardized system of education that will fall in place with the needs of the nation and the development of Nigeria.

In view of this, in the year 1969 (9 years after independence), Nigeria organized her first edition of the National Conference on Education, where the education curriculum was drafted to be used in schools. A new education policy was made and the education roadmap was created. Parts of the roadmap included (among others) -

• Creating an enabling environment and right values in the educational sector
• Training the trainers to extend the leverage of formal education
• Provision of instructional materials to facilitate learning, so as to impact positively on the nation.

There was no doubt, the education convention was a huge success and it marked a turning point in the educational sector of Nigeria.

As at today, Nigeria is host to over 150 higher institutes of learning (Universities, Polytechnics/Monotechnics, Colleges of education, etc), large number of secondary, primary, and nursery schools; these are all traceable to the success of the education convention. Asides that, Nigeria has produced world leaders, record breakers and pace setters, both in educational sector and other sectors - all thanks to the advancement made from the National Education Convention.

From history, you will agree with me that steady progress has been made in the educational sector. In 1981, a system of education called 6-3-3-4 was adopted. What this means is that, on the average, a child's duration in primary school should be 6 years, then they'll spend 6 years in secondary school (which will be divided into: 3 years each for junior and senior secondary schools respectively), then 4 years for the University education. Even though these figures may slightly vary (especially the duration in University), but on the overall, it led to a major boost in the educational system of Nigeria.

References: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5