The educational system in Africa is relatively comparable with other continents of the world. At least people trained in Africa go out to work with and compete with persons trained outside Africa. However, what can be said of the educational system in Africa is the failure of African leaders to take funding of education seriously. Education is not receiving proper attention in Africa. What is witnessed in Africa, as far as education is concerned, is lip-service to the people.

Teachers in Nigeria, for instance, are the poorest paid workers in the country. They are never encouraged to love their job by the people in government. Teachers appear to be persons of the lowest ebbs in Nigeria. They have no morale to boost because subsequent governments have made them lose interest in the job. Their salaries are scarcely paid when due. They hardly enjoy on the job training. They hardly get paid any entitlements and bonuses. As a result, they live in abject poverty in remote villages. Their students have little respect for them because of their economic level. Nobody considers teaching jobs as a lucrative employment. No friend congratulates anybody employed as a school teacher. Those who suffer most are primary school teachers.

School buildings are sorry sites. That is at primary and secondary schools level. Only schools along roads and expressways tend to receive more attention than those in remote villages. School pupils in remote villages write on their laps while sitting in the dust of the classrooms. If students have no seat in a class what would one say of teaching aids? I do not know of any primary school or even secondary schools in villages of Nigeria that can boast of libraries and laboratories.

How students and pupils get to their schools is not the government’s concern, and there are no school buses for children of the poor in African countries. If the government does not consider improving the working conditions of teachers or renovation of dilapidated school buildings, what attention does anyone expect for pupils and students?

In higher institutions, it has been a tug-of-war between lecturers and government. This is because they are a class of people who are highly learned. They know their rights and vehemently fight for them, yet they suffer neglect. Only children of the well-to-do who attended good schools in towns pass exams to higher institutions. The poor depends on exam malpractices to pass exams to universities. The end result is the wide-spread exam malpractices which have taken over secondary schools in African countries, especially Nigeria.

Africans go out to compete with others in the world as mentioned earlier because such Africans had the opportunity to attend good schools. The bulk of others at home only know how to write their names. Only people who attended schools of old enjoy a good education system. What has resulted since the late 80s is a rotten education system. The end result is increase in criminality and fraudulent acts - which has ravaged the image of some African countries.