pannigeriannews 
By Sunday Adepoju
A scholar of philosophy of education and lecturer at the Department of Educational Foundations, Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State, Dr. Kassim Oyewumi, has said that the Nigeria’s education policies by successive administrations represent the saying “old wine in new bottles”.
Dr. Oyewumi also decried that most of the Nigeria’s education policies have largely lacked implementation.
Speaking on the theme “Nigeria’s education policies”, Oyewumi stated this in an interview with Pan-Nigerian News on Saturday.
According to him, assessment of the country’s education policies could only be done in performance while evaluation is done on policies.
On the policy of Colleges of Education awarding degrees and abolition of 6-3-3-4, he maintained that it had been in operation before now.
“The policy of empowering colleges of education to be awarding degrees is not new. Many colleges of education before now have been awarding degrees but in affiliation to a universities.
“On 6-3-3-4, the system had been abolished during Obasanjo administration between 2004 to 2007 when nine years of basic education was introduced.
What is not clear about the policies is that one hasn’t seen any implementation of any of them and thus, it is practically impossible to assess them.
“Nevertheless, if the policies are implemented both in theory and practice, it is a welcome idea because it will go a long way to addressing prevalent issues such as superiority status of university degree over Nigeria Certificate in Education and so on.”
Oyewumi, a holder of first, second and third degrees from University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, emphasised that the move of producing degrees in colleges of education would help reduce overwhelming pressure on university admissions.
He explained that most of the policies, particularly on secondary schools only appear on paper.
He said, “For the 6-3-3-4 structure, the truth of the matter is that secondary school education structure in Nigeria exists only on white paper but not in practice because all what are expected to be implemented according to National Policy on Education are not in place. So, not until theory is matched with practice before any meaningful assessments of the system could happen.”
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