By Abstract
This paper examines education, politics and leadership in Nigeria; challenges and the way forward. The concepts of education, politics and leadership were elucidated. Education is recognized as the positive tool for enhancing individual and societal development. Sadly in Nigeria, education has not lived up to its expectation as a result of politics, which is highly ethicized and regionalized. The political leadership directly influences outcomes of the educational sector in terms of policy formulation and implementation, funding and administration. The paper opines that the political class has failed to provide leadership that will galvanize the educational sector and make it productive. The challenges of education in Nigeria were identified and solutions on the way forward proffered. The decline in standard of education in Nigeria ranges from deterioration of facilities, lack of facilities, obsolete equipment, inadequate funding, examination malpractice, inadequate and unqualified teachers, incessant strike, political interference and above all, lack of proper implementation of educational policies. The paper proffers that adequate funding, training and retraining of teachers, reorientation and re-education of the citizens and political class, political education at all levels of education, merit in the place of mediocrity, just to mention a few, are way forward for the challenges of education, politics and the political class in Nigeria.
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