Publisher: First Choice Books
Year of Publication: 2024 (2nd Edition)
Pagination: 313
Reviewer: Sylvester Odion Akhaine
Education and Sustainable Development in the 21st Century by Benedicta Egbo, an Emeritus Professor of Education, deals with the subject of education and its nexus to sustainable development. She does this in nine chapters that interpenetrate in their treatment of issues in education. The author engages with visions of education in definitional and conceptual reflections. While she espouses a consensual notion of education, that is, “education is the process through which society socialises its future” (p 5), she goes to length to discuss the ideological underpinnings of education manifest in class orientation to the more egalitarian aspiration. Also, she emphasises the centrality of education to the goal of development in sustainable ways.
Having warned us of the book’s dichotomous approach, the author paid particularised attention to Nigeria, the historical evolution of her education while eliciting the comparative and analytical values of the general. The author contrasts the traditional African education that “was holistic and was based on the principles of immersion with an emphasis on the interrelationship between the individual, his or her community (communal cooperation) and the environment” (p. 35) with colonial education that made an inroad into the country about the second half of the nineteen century. The latter did not only “enthrone Western worldview and epistemologies in the country” (p. 37), it was essentially exploitative and assimilationist” (p. 37). Ostensibly, Western education served as a means of Christian evangelisation, it would later form the pivot of colonial bureaucracy through the training of low-level colonial administrative staff. Boldly, the author foregrounds the latent function of colonial education, paraphrasing Omolewa (2007). As she puts it: “an implicit goal was the subjugation of indigenous learning systems based on the erroneous belief that there were organised education systems prior to the advent of colonialism” (37).
Prof Tahir Mamman, Nigeria’s education minister
Nevertheless, the Phelps Stokes Commission critique of the colonial education Policy would morph into a systematised policy on education which Nigerians embraced as a means “for improved quality of life and upward mobility” (p. 38). It is worthy of mention that the Universal Primary Education (UPE) was first introduced in 1955 by the Western Region under the Premiership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Egbo enthuses about the prospect of education at the twilight of colonial rule: “At that point the nation appeared to be on course to developing a robust education system that would foreground accelerated socio-economic development” (p. 39).
With a temporal schema, Egbo captures the ebbs and flows in the stream of Nigeria’s educational development. The period of expansion and reform (1960-1970), was underlined by a focus on the dysfunctional content of inherited colonial education, namely, curricular discontent, educational disparity among the regions of the Nigerian federation, inadequate facilities, and low-level of enrolment. The consequence of this concern was the maiden engrossment of the National Policy on Education in 1977. The period of expansion (1970-1985), was marked by the reversal of problems identified in the first period, and the climax was the re-introduction of the UPE on a national scale and the establishment of institutions for teachers’ training and manpower development. The third epoch she dubs a systematic disequilibrium (1985 to date), has been characterised by quantitative, not qualitative, expansion despite the lofty objectives of the minders of education in the country. The most salient development in this period is the formulation and implementation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE), considered by UNESCO as a strategic handle to sustainable education in Nigeria (p. 42) aimed at eradicating illiteracy, alleviating poverty, accelerating national development, and building cohesion.
The structure of education in Nigeria, from pre-primary to tertiary, is outlined and discussed. Also given salience are the factors militating against education in Nigeria. These include limited life chances, chronic underfunding, poor quality, falling standards, curricular discontent, governance and accountability problems, infrastructural decay, and corrupt practices among others. On underfunding, the author notes that “one fact is immediately obvious in any analysis of the Nigerian education system. It is grossly underfunded” (p.60), and has never exceeded ten percent. The point is driven home by a comparative resort to the funding of education by sister African states that have exceeded the two-digit percentile in their annual budgetary allocation to education. Botswana, Burkina-Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda belong to this bracket.
Women, education, and sustainable development merit a chapter treatment. Apart from the acknowledgement of the demographic strength of women as the reason for the impossibility of social progress without them, Egbo grounds her discussion on the theoretical and conceptual nuances that abound in the sphere of scholarly conversation. In this respect, the modernisation paradigm, Women in Development (WIN), Women and Development (WAD), Gender and Development (GAD), and Gender Mainstreaming avail. Conceptually, these ideas are focused on differently. The author points to their shortcomings, ironically inherent in their goals. For example, while acknowledging gender mainstreaming as a progressive idea, the author calls for “checks and balances to avoid making it a de facto instrument for addressing issues that are only of strategic interest to men under the guise of a presumably, egalitarian social policy” (p.160).
From the general to the specific, the author discusses social policy and women’s education in Nigeria underlined by the National Policy on Women (NPW) which aims at the full integration of women into development, and the more ambitious National Gender Policy (NGP), that has as its goal the provision of equal opportunities for women and men, and the abolition of the historical constraints against women. The author adverts and discusses some of the constraints to women ‘s equal access to educational opportunities, namely, socio-cultural bias, poverty, bias in the type and quality of education, socialisation of the girl-child; and fiscal policies. These, it is argued can be overcome through the empowerment of women for sustainable development using inclusive policies, increased investment in girls’ education, labour sector reform, inclusive curriculum, and progressive social attitudes. The author makes a strong case for rural women. In her words, “A]lthough rural women in Nigeria make significant contributions to agricultural production, they collectively represent a stereotype of the exploited and disempowered” (p.182).
Elsewhere in this work, the author pre-occupies herself with teachers, teaching, and pedagogy. On these issues, the author is in her elements, being a teacher, she dissects them vividly and roots for critical thinking/consciousness a la Paulo Freire. While advancing ways to improve the capacity of teachers, she notes that globally, “policy makers are reconstituting teacher education policies and programmes to reflect the knowledge skills and competency needs of the 21st century” (p. 191). And as the National Policy on Education says, “no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers” (cited in p. 191).
However, it is in Chapter Three of this work that we reach the border between education and sustainable development. The idea of sustainable development is inexorably rooted in the environment, “a critical determinant of our wellbeing and as such, a premium resource in any society” (p.70). The Brundtland Report and several United Nations summits have all emphasised the sustainability issue. For example, The Brundtland Report, titled Our Common Future states that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs” (cited in p. 76). The author brings theories of development to bear on her analysis. We are regaled with modernisation theory and its linear prescription a la Rostow; the dependency theory of the ECLA School that is anchored on the centre-periphery explanation a la Cardoso, Furtado, Sunkel, Quijano, Frank, dos Santos et al.; and the Schultzian human capital theory that emphasises the corresponding relationship between national income growth and improved skills and productive capabilities of the labour force. To put it differently, investment in man using education is a form of capital, human capital. While the author is eclectic and pragmatic in the use of these theoretical insights, she calls for the adoption of an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approach to teaching and learning that is based on the ideals and principles of sustainability which should be [an] integral aspect of the acquisition of knowledge at all levels of the education system in all contemporary societies” (p. 79).
Anyone reading through this work for the first time would discover that this work was first published in 2014, ten years ago, and would wonder about its contemporary relevance. The issues raised about education in Nigeria ten years ago, have not been resolved, and have worsened. For those genuinely interested in dealing with problems of education in Nigeria, this work should be your companion. The only major shortcoming I see is that the work deals with so many issues that require unpacking and ought to merit treatment in separate volumes.
In summing up, Egbo expects her ideas to form the basis of influence and action in public policy on education in Nigeria and elsewhere, and thus emphasises, “[r]eclaiming the country’s future depends on how well it is able to reform its education system. This is a national imperative” (p. 269).
