Inequalities and Incentives in the Nigerian Education System - Literature review Example

Literature Review Sociology by Inequalities and Incentives in the Nigerian Education System: Investigating the Origins and Outcomes of the Public-Private Split Education inequality refers to the different learning results and efficacy that the student experience coming from various groups. Measurement of education effectiveness is done using grades that the students in study score, test scores, the rates of drop-outs, college completion rates, and college statistics. Education inequality is attributed to economic disparities that often fall on racial grounds and mostly in the modern conversation concerning educational equity conflates the two. Education inequality between the minority students and the white student continues to dominate social and economic inequalities and differences. Many continuous attempts have been made worldwide to help in reforming education at all levels (Sleeter, 1996). It is quite difficult to eradicate education inequality due to the social, economic, culture and history that education is deeply rooted. Despite the difficulty in attempts to eliminate the differences, education remains a vital aspect of the society’s movement forward. Education promotes equality of opportunity, citizenship, social inclusion and economic development. For this reasons, education equality should be encouraged. Several variables are attributed to the outcomes of unequal educational. Such variables include origin of the family, gender, social class, and earnings, achievements made in life, health status and political participation. An education incentive refers to a program or formal scheme used to promote and encourage teachers and students to produce better results and the best out of education. An incentive program aims at giving or producing better and the best results out of something. Implementation of good education incentive program improves the learning performance and tries to eradicate education inequalities. In third world countries, research methodology is based on the differentiation of initial idea to get to a strong hypothesis and this technique is being used from decades, although, research in such countries exclusively lack empirical analysis of the basic idea due to lack of practical resources.(Buchmann & Hannum, 2001, p. 77). Research methodology being followed in developing and developed nations have independent research protocols which mainly include educational infrastructure of a country, employee-employer relationship based on educational standards and least differentiated class structures. (Buchmann & Hannum, 2001, p. 78). Educational protocols followed in developing countries are less responsive and effective due to the weaknesses in their infrastructure which majorly flourishes due to low educational levels followed by high inequalities and instability in educational standards which in turn encouraged stratification among schooling systems (Foster, 1980, p. 201). Stratification in the educational system impacted the social behaviors of mankind in that region. One having education based on western standard and elite background was encouraged in all fields rather than a talented person from weaker background. This segregation in social behavior restricted the power of mankind to improve their status and in turn lifestyles (Foster, 1980) (Allmendinger, 1989). Recent research on the educational system of Nigeria has clearly focused on the fact that western educational standards have allowed the Nigerian population to excel in their fields by having higher standards inn occupational statuses. On the contrary, restricted growth and social mobility in the northern areas of the country are marked by the dominance of Islam. Onwuameze provided the evidence which supports a historial claim made by the mankind that correlates educational standard to the productive growth of the nation which positively impacts the economic growth of the nation(Onwuameze, 2013). In 1974, researchers quoted that the highly educated occupational persons of that time were the teachers but afterwards Morgan and Morgan were having the opinion that with the passage of time Nigeria has improved her educational structure which resulted in increased literacy rate in the country. Increased literacy thus increased the demand of educated workers which positively affected the economic development of the country (Morgan & Morgan, 1998, p. 21). At the end of 1992 it was concluded that the average educational tenure per teacher has been raised to 13 years from 11 years in last 18 years which was a positive impact on the history of education. Similar increase in educational years was seen in other departments as well. In clerical staff, average number of school years was raised from 9 years to 11 years in the same duration of 18 years, which was still another significant improvement; even better than teaching. The school years for the skilled workers were improved from 3years to 9 years while that for the unskilled workers were from 1year to 8 years. All the investment made in the field of education during 1974-1992 largely affected the public sector of Nigeria by adding significant amount of additional educational years to each profession. This resulted in the cumulative average of 8.8% increase in educational/schooling years per profession in public sector. On the other hand, the private sector, which was already having many skilled and professional individuals, was not much affected by the educational revolution in the country in past 20 years. This was the reason which provided stability to the public sector in inflation adjusted earning whereas, private sector declined. The different statistics that were seen in the public and private sectors as a result of educational improvements prevailed majorly due to inequality in educational standards being followed within the country. This inequality resulted in social categorization of population in Nigeria. This analysis suggests the idea that the expansion of education results in the diminishing of social origin that is farfetched in Nigeria. This extensively favored the fact that the children from elite background were able to attend western education based institutions and thus was welcomed for higher education in top institutions. Such students were then offered key posts in reputed organisations soon after they graduated and among those students females were preferred most(OConnell & Beckett, 1975). In Nigeria, status and wealth the parents own marks the educational level of their child. The studies show that in high educational pioneer institutions, the girls students used to come from wealthier background as compared to boys studying in those institutions, therefore, girls get keys posts easily as compared to their classmate boys(OConnell & Beckett, 1975). Similar trends were seen for the Muslim students from wealthier background living in the far north as compared to the Christian living in south who were from low earning background(OConnell & Beckett, 1975). Besides wealth, education of father also plays vital role in the good future of his children (OConnell & Beckett, 1975). Nigeria being a third world developing country is a complete example of social, educational and behavioral inequality as a nation. Besides this, Nigerian students have very low (Adeyemi, 2011, p. 38) success rate in their educational career which is measured in terms of poor teaching and efficiency of school (Arikewuyo, 2004, pp. 195-207), but it directly affects the future and the professional life of the student. Not only poor academic record but poverty is also a factor that hinders in the success of individual living in Nigeria. As the social behavior of Nigeria is based on inequality, therefore, it is a common practice to use power and resources to get admission to good school and have higher rank in society rather than merit or ability. Wealth is the key to secure and bright future. One instant that supports above literature is a poor students who gets admission in high ranked university is not given a good job but a student who attended low ranked university and is having wealthy background can easily secure his future. Being in the same scenario od SES, the students from low SES background need more effort as compare to children of parents with high rank and this situation is worsening over time resulting in increased gap between rich and poor; poor getting poorer and rich getting richer with time. The research being carried out on the educational scenario of Nigeria is majorly based on SEC (senior education certificate) and there are only few in-school scenarios that are completely studied. These in-school review test scores are the base for the admission to universities of Nigeria to measure the intellect leveland schooling performance of candidates. When in-school test scores were reviewed, researchers felt an urgent need to overcome the excess failure rate and introduce merit criteria effectively (Ijaiya, 2000). The results clearly indicate that most of the areas had above 50% failure in English language in mid 19’s. Another study was conducted in 1991 in which only 5 students passed out of 264 in a test conducted among 6 schools and were qualified for university. In Nigeria, to get admission in university, the candidate must have atleast 5 credits in English and Mathematics. Below 5 credits a student is not admitted to any institution. According to researcher’s literature on the issues of teacher’s motivation in Nigeria, relevant documents and the views of key stakeholders suggest that there is a teacher motivational crisis among primary school teachers in Nigeria. Only no school system that can have higher quality than the level of causative and job commitment of teachers within the system. The educational system in Nigeria seems to be adequately staffed by teachers with poor morale and low levels of commitment to work. In terms of job context, reward and job content system for teachers, there exist a kind of systematic motivation crisis within the educational system in Nigeria. School buildings are largely dilapidated; schools are overcrowded with either too many staffs or students, and the reward systems in terms of salaries and emoluments appear significantly unsatisfactory. In the recent years, improvements made in the educational system in Nigeria are not convincing enough to make any significant improvements on the issues of teachers’ morale. However, study has shown a discovery in the consistent trend to boost the job morale of Nigerian teachers especially in the advent of democratic government in 1999. Improvement outside the school system, such as the growing tendency of globalization, the trend towards the information-driven economy.Accrued tempo of private sector participation in education, and the advanced federal funding of education have attributed to the improvement in teachers morale and commitment to work.Supposing this trend continues before long, teachers motivation in Nigeria will perceive significant and satisfactory improvement.Regional inequality limits overall progress in education worldwide. The study of regional inequality in Nigeria is hardly complete without tracing the evolution of knowledge in order to map how the different regions reacted when Western education was introduced in the country. The missionaries presented the first formal western education throughout Nigeria and other parts of the West Africa during the colonial era and the early periods after colonization.As a result, the coastal areas in southern Nigeria and other surroundings of West Africa that had more missionary settlements had better access to education as compared to the northern parts that were remotely located(Aguolu, 1985). In addition, the widespread of the western education system in the north with the predominantly Islamic population became extremely difficult due to religious beliefs that western education introduced that were not Islam. In order to identify the source of the overall inequality in the country, Nigeria, some researchers simplified the analysis into coast land inland provinces, and also the rural and urban areas. Average years of schooling and percentage of graduates of junior secondary schools entering senior secondary schools as proxies for educational gain. However, some studies provided an elaborate description of the underlying methodology that involved cumulative distribution functions for the levels of educational accomplishment in a given population, and also calculating the Gini ratios based on those distributions. In conclusion,the main source of education inequality in Nigeria is mainly within regions rather than between regions. In Nigeria a negative relationship exists between education attainment and education inequality. This means that state that have higher educational attainment are most likely to attain more equitable distributions of education. In conclusion, it seems that despite the phenomenal worldwide progress in educational expansion, social background continues to influence educational intergenerational transmission of educational opportunity in the third world developing nations. However, the family history alone does not fully explain or elaborate the differentin level of education. Schooling structures or combination of either family or school factors also influence educational outcomes. References List Adeyemi, T. O., 2011. A Comparative Study of Students’ Academic Performance in Public Examinations in Secondary Schools in Ondo and Ekiti States, Nigeria. Current Research Journal of Economic Theory, 3(2),. Aguolu, C. C., 1985. The Future of Education for Librarianship in Nigeria: Problems and Expectations. Libri. Ajayi, J. O., 2014. Resurgence of Ethnic Crises and Instability in Nigeria. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences. Allmendinger, J., 1989. Educational systems and labor market outcomes. European sociological review, 5(3). ANugwOm, E. E., 2008. CONTESTED TERRAIN: Economic Migration, Islamic Sharia Law and Ethno-religious Conflict in Nigria. African Study Monographs, 29(4) Arikewuyo, M. O., 2004. Stress management strategies of secondary school teachers in Nigeria. Educational Research, 46(2). Astin, A. W., 2012. 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