On May 29, 2008, The Guardian newspaper carried a story on the number candidates who sat for this year’s Joint Administration and Matriculation Board Examination (JAMB). The number of candidates, as it concerns some states in the north, makes a very shocking reading. In fact it is disheartening, a graphic illustration of how steep the standard of education has fallen in the northern part of the country. The Guardian story disclosed that a total of 998,114 candidates wrote the JAMB exam, held across the country in April this year. The first six states with the highest number of candidates, expectedly are all from the south. They are Imo, first with 101,201 candidates, representing (9.6%) of the total. Anambra followed with 72,722 or (6.89%), Delta – 71,722 (6.73%), Edo – 60,714 (5.76%), Akwa Ibom – 52,635 (4.99%) and Abia – 49,810 (4.72%).

The last five states? As can be expected, they are all from the north. The states are Taraba from the hapless northeast with 5,582 candidates or (0.53%), Sokoto – 4,926 (0.47%), Jigawa – 3,987 (0.38%), Zamfara – 3,826 (0.36%) from the lamentable northwest, FCT – 1,726 (0.16%) and taking the rear, the very last state is another northeast state, Yobe with just 703 candidate or 0.07% of the nearly one million candidates who took the exam. Of the six states, three, namely Sokoto, Jigawa, and Zamfara are from the northwest, while the northeast has two – Taraba and Yobe. The relatively better off north central was not left out, as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) came fifth, if the area is regarded as a state.

This is the sad reality of the educational imbalance between the north and the south, particularly at the tertiary level. The real shock and dismay however, is not that the bottom six states are all from the north. No, what is really disturbing and heart-rendering is the scale of the imbalance between the two sections of the country. Just compare Imo, with over one hundred thousand candidates and Yobe with less than one thousand. Statistically speaking, for every 100 candidates from Imo state who sat for this year’s JAMB exam, there is approximately just one candidate from Yobe.

And yet the two states inhabit the same country. One sits at the top of the education ladder, the Europe or North America of Nigeria, while the other, whether it is Yobe or Zamfara gasps for air at the bottom, as if it were part of Niger Republic, our poor northern neighbour. In fact it is possible that just two states from the south- say Imo and Abia have more students who sat for the exam than the combined total from the 19 northern states. It is this bad. The north for all its size and potentialities is not pulling its weight, lest of all in the area of education.

What is happening here? It is partly a sad story of gross neglect, misplaced priorities and perhaps a disdain for or lack of appreciation of education. Another reason may be that because the north is economically poorer, parent in the region find it difficult to find the money to pay for the JAMB forms, leading to a situation in which many candidates from such poor homes are unable to write the exam.

Great societies and civilizations are built on the foundation of sound education, especially one that places special emphasis on cutting edge science and technology.

Think United State of America and Europe. See the critical role good education has played in their rapid and awesome advancement. This is why progressive and forward looking countries, aspiring to join the club of the truly developed nations of the world invest heavily in quality education, especially in the areas of science and applied sciences and information and computer technology (ICT). A good example of such country is tiny Singapore, which recently moved from the unenviable status of a developing nation to the enviable and prestigious rank of a first world, all thanks largely to a first class educational system.

Sadly, we are unable or unwilling to replicate such great facts, particularly the north. If education is central to human progress and development, it appears we are yet to fully grasp and digest this reality. In most of the states, education receives the lion share of the yearly budget and yet at the end of the day there is little to show for such huge budgetary allocations. Clearly there is a mismatch between official pronouncements and budgetary votes and the reality or the result on the ground. This calls into question the manner the education votes are spent.

Nor do we seem to get our priorities right. What is more important: Good primary and secondary school sectors that turn out a large number of qualified candidates for tertiary admissions or an under-funded and under-staffed university, perpetually searching for qualified indigenes to fill the quota reserved for them? A university’s ability to excel and stay competitive is largely dependent on the quality of the students it admits. It will be unable to fulfill this goal if the students are academically poor because they had deficient education at both the primary and secondary levels. This is why it makes more sense to place greater emphasis on the two lower levels of the system so that in the long run a university will not find it difficult to get qualified students for admission, particularly in the sciences and applied sciences.

The north has a long way to go to catch up with the south in education. In fact, the gap seems to be rapidly widening each passing day because, whereas the south sees education as a serious and important business and thus invests heavily in it, both through public and private participation, the north is not giving it adequate attention, hence the poor result, year in year out. Yet if the north desires to earnestly tackle the abject poverty in the region, provide economic opportunities for its teeming jobless youths, create a more equitable and peaceful society and become an effective player in a globalize 21st century world, then it must start paying special attention to education through infrastructural development, training and retraining of teachers, employment of more trained hands, staff incentives, judicious use of funds and serious inspection and monitoring of academic activities in schools. If this is realised, the north may be able not just to reduce the present yawning gap between it and the south, but more importantly create a better place for its people.