PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS

IN IBADAN, NIGERIA: A HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Ibraheem Mikail Abiola
International Islamic University of Malaysia
ibraheem_abiola@yahoo.com
Abstract
Nigeria is not left out of the countries that subscribe to the fact that secondary education is a veritable means of
effecting national development. To this, government, private individuals and organizations have established
educational institutions at all levels in order to satisfy the educational needs and aspiration of the people. Education
is believed to be life, hence, an educational instructor stated that education is the development of the whole man;
soul, body, intellect, wills emotion and physical well-being. The products from our secondary schools especially
public secondary schools, still leave members of the public in doubt as to whether any learning has taken place in
the course of schooling. The reading, writing physical and health education and numeracy skills that are expected to
be acquired at the secondary school level are even disappearing and this is giving a lot of concern.

Keywords: Nigeria, ibadan, secondary school, education, government.

INTRODUCTION
Worldwide more children are going to school than ever before in history, an estimated 83% of secondary
school age children now attend school, and over 80% complete secondary school.1 Secondary school is
important for the reasons as creative, cognitive, and social rise of children to learn better and face many
challenges of future life.2 Going to school learning new things, being a neat educational environment and
being healthy is every secondary school childrens right. In reality every children in developing countries
do not have access to safe and hygienic sanitation facilities.3 The provision for safe water and sanitation
facilities in secondary schools in Ibadan metropolis should be the first step towards a healthy physical
learning environment benefiting both health and learning. However the mere provision of facilities does
not make them sustainable or produce the desire impact.
It is the use of technical facilities and the related appropriate hygiene behaviours of people that
provide health benefits. In secondary schools, hygiene education aims to promote those practices that will
help in preventing water and sanitation-related illness as well as promoting healthy behaviour in the

UNESCO (2002) A publication of UNESCO Institute of Statistic (2000-2002)

School Sanitation and Hygiene (SSHE) Global symposium (2004), School Sanitation and Hygiene Education in
India: Investment in Building Childrens future. SSHE Global symposium Construction is not enough, Delft, The
Netherland 8-10 June 2004, P.22-23.
3
IRC International water and Sanitation centre (2001), School Sanitation: Access to safe and clean sanitation
facilities is every childrens right. http://www.sanicon.net/titles/topicintro.php3?topicId=20
2

future generation of adults4 in Ibadan and other cities. Although the importance of water and sanitary
facilities from essential component of an enabling learning environment and quality education, in practice
the sanitary situation in many schools in Ibadan and other developing cities is deplorable. While there is
no such thing as a typical school in developing country, it is often found that water supply is often not
available or inadequate for secondary school pupils in Ibadan and its environs, latrines and toilets do not
function properly for example, to a lack of adequate water for flushing, toilets are under padlock simple
because the secondary students are not trusted to use them properly, school pupils especially girls, do not
attend classes because appropriate and private sanitation facilities are inadequate.5
Under these mentioned condition, secondary schools become unsafe places for the wards where
diseases can be transmitted, with mutually re enforcing negative impacts for the children, their families,
the schools and overall community development.6 The incidence of major childhood illness such as
diarrhea, hermitic, infection among its students will possibly increase. The global prevalence of intestinal
helminthes in secondary school pupils age is as highly as is estimated at 35% of roundworm, 25% of
whipworm, and 26% of hookworm.7 This in turn adversely affects secondary school students, lowering
enrollment rates, increasing absenteeism and contributing to poor classroom performance and early
school dropout. This paper focus on secondary school simply because after home and family training,
school serve as the next most important place of learning for students.
The second problem and challenges for secondary schools in Ibadan is the educational
curriculum, the variables of the poor performance of secondary school students in courses like English,
Mathematics, Physics, History and Government is base on seeming absence of enrichment materials in
the schools across Ibadan nowadays, the teachers and language course books must look beyond confines
of the classroom into the outer world, focusing attention on the use of individual will make of what he or
she has learned in a situation which is not primarily a learning situation. In the 60s to early 70s majority
of the secondary schools in Ibadan had native speaker of English as teachers who taught, encouraged and
developed communicative tendencies in learners and even created an enabling English language speaking
environment through discipline and hardworking in listening, speaking and writing. This development

Burgers, L. (2000), Background and rationale for school sanitation and hygiene education. New York, USA:
UNISEF. http://www.irc.nl/sshe/resources/rationale.html.
5
WHO (1997), Primary and Secondary Physical and Environmental Health. WHO global School Health Initiative.
WHO information Series on School Health: Document Two. Geneva.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.,Burger, L,(2010).

was supported by many libraries8 within Ibadan metropolis. In real educational learning situation,
language is naturally acquired in its social contexts through interaction in the family and larger society.
But in schools, curriculum is acquired through a lot of reading. In fact reading occupies a central position
in language learning at school. As important as reading is, learners do not do not normally read and when
they do; they do not comprehend in most cases. In fact linguistic competence is learnt in school through
reading more than communicative skills and since there is a link between linguistic competence and
communicative competence, learners often fall short of communicative competence. Therefore there is a
big problem in secondary school system, curriculum planners, tutors, and linguistics therefore need to reexamine the aims, goals, objectives and methods of learning and curriculum materials across secondary
schools in Ibadan axes in order to make curriculum outcome a reality9. This paper is also aim in thrust of
providing solution to the problem of curriculum in secondary schools in the city of Ibadan in terms of
achieving communication goal at the secondary school level. The challenges and problems above are
identify in order to help achieve the general aims of secondary school education in Ibadan as provided in
section 14: 17 (1,2) of the National policy on Education which are:
1- To prepare students for useful living in society; and
2- To prepare them for higher education.
In order to meet these requirements above, the following goals must be put in focus.
1- Students must be able to understand as well as converse effective to speak English
2- Students should be able to effectively read, comprehend as well as engage in creative writing.10
Another significant challenge facing secondary school in Ibadan is the state government
allocation to the educational sector, the sector has continued to rise and fall over the last decade. Funding
of educational system in Nigeria as a whole has been identified as one of the most pervasive and the
greatest challenge to quality education and the training of all categories of professionals in the country.
Experts agree that the most serious problem of facing the secondary school education in Ibadan is the
manner in which the sector is funded, organized, planned and administered.11 The United Nations
Education and Scientific Committee (UNESCO) recommended standard budgetary allocation to
education is 26% of the national and state budget in order to engender proper development in the sector
8

Ajayi, L (2002), Newspaper as Enrichment Material for Enhancing Students Performance in English in
Adebayo L., Isiugo- Abanihe, I. and Ohia, I.N (eds) Perspective on Applied Linguistics in Languages and
Literature. Ibadan: Stiring Horden Publisher (Nig) Ltd.
9
Adegbite, W. Curriculum Development in English Studies in Nigerian Secondary Schools in Dada, A.,
Abimbade, A. and Akolawole O.O. (eds) Issues in Language, Communication and Education. Ibadan: Constellation
Books.
10
Ibid.,
11
Aniekwe, N. and Ozochi, C.A, (2010), Restruction education, training and human-resources development in the
Nigerian construction industry. Journal of Science and Technology, Education Research Vol.1(5), 92-98.

and in appreciation of the key role of that sector in economic development. It has been observed that for
the past twenty years, no government in Nigeria as a whole has been able to meet the minimum standard
and indeed, since 1999, and the advent of democracy in Nigeria, the budgetary allocation to education
both in federal and state level has not risen beyond 10 % .12 While many countries have met and exceeded
the UNESCO approved minimum budget allocation to educational sector, country like Ghana allocated
30% of its national budget to education in 2013, Nigeria and Oyo state has continue to accord low priority
to education and indeed the allocation of only 1.8% in the year 2000 and 1.92% in 2013 by the Federal
Government of Nigeria.13
It is observed that three major issues constituted problems of secondary schools in Ibadan
according to historical contexts; these were the issues of democratization of secondary education,
boarding system in secondary school and government control of secondary schools, it is suggested that
schools should embark on large scale mixed agriculture to generate internal and necessary funds, in order
to limit the extent of their dependence on government.14 The characteristic of pattern of governments
allocation to education in the country as a percentage of total budget reveals inconsistency. It reveals
clearly that the education that the education expenditure were not considered as policy targets in the
overall budgeting, or else they would have maintained an increasing proportion of the yearly budget of
the nation.15
The student performance in the terminal examination has been very poor over the years in Ibadan,
the finding shows that the performance of students with credit passes in five subjects including
Mathematics and English which are basic requirements for transiting to the next level (higher institution)
has not exceeded 15% in the last decade, it is also observed that the year 2010 West Africa School
Certificate Examination (WASCE) results reveal that only 25% of these students passed with the National
minimum requirement of five (5) credits including English and Mathematics. This mass failure in the
terminal examination has made observers to regard the secondary education in Ibadan and in the country
as inefficient and wastage of resources.16 Also the junior secondary school which is part of Universal
Basic Education (UBE) has suffered greatly from the problem of staffing in Ibadan, Oyo state. Hence
most junior secondary schools use to borrow from senior secondary schools to teach at the junior
12

Ibid.,
Hartnett, T, (2000),Financing Trend and Expenditure Patterns in Nigeria Federal Universities World Bank
(Mimeo) Washington. D.C.
14
Oguntoye, A.O, (1983), Input- Output analysis in Nigeria secondary School System. Lagos educational review-J.
Stud. Edu. 2(1): 99-107.
15
Lawanson, O.I (2009) Human Capital Investment and Economical Development in Nigeria: The role of
Education and Health. Oxford Business and Economics Conference Programme. Accessed on 17-07-2010.
16
Akinsolu, A.O, (2003), Provision and management of facilities for primary education in Nigeria. Paper presented
at the conference of Nigeria Association of Educational Administration and Planning (NAEAP). University of
Ibadan. Oct 29th-31st.
13

secondary schools, some communities in Ibadan provide teachers to junior and senior secondary schools
through Parent Teachers Association (PTA) they tax themselves to engage the service of the National
Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members and part-time teachers in various schools in their communities.
The problem of lack of staffing in junior secondary school has greatly affected the level of quality
teaching at the level of education.
The consequence of the above situations is that most public secondary schools students in Ibadan
will continue to remain poor academically, struggling or frustrated learners and readers simply because
they do not have the required policy, facilities and personnel that will help them to become good learners.
This is because one of the effective ways of becoming an effective reader is through exposure to reading
and motivation to read. A situation where most tutors are half baked and ill prepared to handle reading
and learning, also there is lack of conducive environment and adequate equipments and facilities to
promote learning and reading.17

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that nothing has changed significantly in public secondary schools within
Ibadan metropolis as far as learning is concerned, this is because the level of facilities such as books,
journal, furniture even also libraries that are helpful for the development of a good learner are not in good
place and something drastic as not be done, that is the situation as not been address or arrested by the
authorities. Meanwhile government at the both levels in Ibadan has to intervene urgently to address the
poor state of reading and learning in public secondary schools in the city of Ibadan if actually they want
to reduce the present 2.9% that Nigeria contributes to the world illiterate population according to
statistics.

REFERENCES
Taiwo, C.O. The Nigerian Education System: Aims, Plans and Implementations. In Adeshina, S.,
Akinyemi, K., and Ajayi, K. (Eds). Nigeria Education: Trends and Issues. Ile Ife, (1983, University of Ife
Press Ltd)
Lawanson, O.I (2009) Human Capital Investment and Economical Development in Nigeria: The role of
Education and Health. Oxford Business and Economics Conference Programme. Accessed on 17-072010.
Akinsolu, A.O, (2003), Provision and management of facilities for primary education in Nigeria. Paper
presented at the conference of Nigeria Association of Educational Administration and Planning
(NAEAP). University of Ibadan. Oct 29th-31st.
17

Taiwo, C.O. The Nigerian Education System: Aims, Plans and Implementations. In Adeshina, S., Akinyemi, K.,
and Ajayi, K. (Eds). Nigeria Education: Trends and Issues. Ile Ife, (1983, University of Ife Press Ltd) 45-52.

Aniekwe, N. and Ozochi, C.A, (2010), Restruction education, training and human-resources development
in the Nigerian construction industry. Journal of Science and Technology, Education Research Vol.1(5).
Hartnett, T, (2000),Financing Trend and Expenditure Patterns in Nigeria Federal Universities World
Bank (Mimeo) Washington. D.C.
Oguntoye, A.O, (1983), Input- Output analysis in Nigeria secondary School System. Lagos educational
review-J. Stud. Edu. 2(1).
Adegbite, W. Curriculum Development in English Studies in Nigerian Secondary Schools in Dada, A.,
Abimbade, A. and Akolawole O.O. (eds) Issues in Language, Communication and Education. Ibadan:
Constellation Books.
Ajayi, L (2002), Newspaper as Enrichment Material for Enhancing Students Performance in English
in Adebayo L., Isiugo- Abanihe, I. and Ohia, I.N (eds) Perspective on Applied Linguistics in Languages
and Literature. Ibadan: Stiring Horden Publisher (Nig) Ltd.
IRC International water and Sanitation centre (2001), School Sanitation: Access to safe and clean
sanitation facilities is every childrens right. http://www.sanicon.net/titles/topicintro.php3?topicId=20
Burgers, L. (2000), Background and rationale for school sanitation and hygiene education. New York,
USA: UNISEF. http://www.irc.nl/sshe/resources/rationale.html.
WHO (1997), Primary and Secondary Physical and Environmental Health. WHO global School Health
Initiative. WHO information Series on School Health: Document Two. Geneva.
UNESCO (2002) A publication of UNESCO Institute of Statistic (2000-2002)
School Sanitation and Hygiene (SSHE) Global symposium (2004), School Sanitation and Hygiene
Education in India: Investment in Building Childrens future. SSHE Global symposium Construction is
not enough, Delft, The Netherland 8-10 June 2004.