Challenges Facing Education Sector in Katsina State III: Look at

Some Outcomes
By

Muttaqha Rabe Darma, PhD, DBA

President Pleasant Research and Development Group (PREDG)
Umaru Yaradua Human Development Center, Katsina
mrdkt@live.com

Katsina State like all other states in Nigeria have measures that are used to assess
the progress of education in the state. Generally, the result of the West African
Examination Council (WAEC) is used as a measure. Over the years the state has
not been doing well in WAEC and have been lowly ranked.

Year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Total Number Sat 30,939 39,601 20,404 21,717 23,916

Five Credits and Above 9,959 12,690 8,311

including English

Five Credits and Above 10,300 15,373 15,224

Including Mathematics

Five Credits and Above 2,071 1,971 7,790 11,612 7,188

Including Mathematics

and English

% of Five Credits and 5.6% 4.9% 38.2% 53.47 30.06%

%
Above

Source: NBS (2019)

From the above table despite the reduction in the number of the students who sat for
the examinations using what was called qualifying examinations, the percentage of
students who obtained five credits and above including English and Mathematics
was less than 40% in 2017.

Challenegs Facing Education in Katsina State IV: THE SOCIAL

CONTEXT OF FOUNDATION EDUCATION SCHOOLING
Understanding and reforming our educational system requires taking a closer look at
the social context within which the system takes place. As indicated in book one, the
successes of the two governmental systems studied lie in the understanding of their
environment or their context. The context of the school system we are focusing on in
this chapter is the Islamic social system. Islam as indicated by Adeleke (2005) is a
distinguishing feature of the cultural traits of the Hausas. For readers who are
interested to know much about the general setting of rural Hausaland, Hill (1972)
describes the settings in Hausa village of Batagarawa in the present day Katsina
State. The socio-economic life of Batagarwa people in the 1970s, particularly, the
concept of village poverty and inequality which are features that may be regarded as
influential to the educational system considered in this presentation was described.
Hill related socio-economic context of the village in focus explaining that those socio-
economic variables are found in the general settings in most Hausa societies.

Concerning the social status of the Hausas, Smith distinguishes the Hausa social
system indicating that there are hierarchical social strata within the social system
(Smith, 1959). According to Smith, there are distinctive variables that distinguish the
strata and the male and female social status order. Certainly, as pointed out in Haour
and Rossi (2010) Islam had been the most influential in all spheres of social and
political life in some of the major Hausa centres since at least the fifteenth century.
Before the 15th century, the role of the Wangara, famed as traders, in the spread of
Islam and even polititcs has been pointed out by several authors (Akinwumi & Raji,
1990; Palmer, 1908, 1927).

Like in most social systems, the Hausa family is central to the quality of education a
child receives in early schooling. Family is defined as two or more people who are
related by blood, marriage, or any other relationship who live in the same household
(Brown, Manning, & Stykes, 2015). The family system is equally influential for the
pre-school and secondary years. Family is particularly influential so for the following
reasons:

Most children live with their families for the longest stage of their education. That is
six years of primary and three of Junior secondary schooling.

During these years the child grows from early childhood to late childhood and
through to early adolescence. At this stage of a child’s development, most of the
child’s learning is done.Throughout these years parents and teachers feature largely
in children’s lives. For poor families as most of the families are in our focus area,
involvement is critical.

The Hausa family system is the traditional Muslim family which is an extended family
(Solivetti, 1994). to show how a 'traditional' society may produce a household system
in which the structural tensions are no less intense than in the Western world usually
including parents, children, grandparents and elderly relatives. Most Muslims believe
that extended families mean greater stability, continuity, love and support for each
other.

Irrespective of the type or composition of the family, the need for close ties with the
school are recognised. Children context has a clear effect on learning in several
different ways (NRC, 1997, See chapter 4). Children acquire language at home, the
emotional, social, and motivational realms are nurtured by the environment. It is
important to indicate that school learning is a social, as well as a cognitive process
that is influenced by the relationships students, have with the environment. Therefore
it is important to consider the impact environment can give on school learning. The
school environment may be the biggest reason for the non-performance of our
students in schools.