Teacher Don't Teach Me
Nonsense: Nigeria, What Manner Of Education
Prince Charles Dickson
I have lost count of the number of times
that I have written on the educational mess we are in, but I have not
lost hope, so I will not stop. Sadly, it has become a case of when we
are not decrying poor student quality, it would be low scholarly ability
of the teachers, and we are graduating young and old in their thousands,
yet a high percentage largely unprepared in cases and in other
situations ill-prepared for life away from the ivory tower. We have not
been able to tackle the menace of cultism, that is when the Minister is
not bribing for Budget or another Minister is not removed acrimoniously.
We have spent time arguing whether government should hands off
accommodation or not. The list of misadventure is endless, the hope
is...
While no University has attained any
real level of autonomy, there is no resource to control. Strikes
by the labour units from Primary to tertiary level have been a
situation of jungle negotiation with the government at one point
or the other reneging on its promises. Weeks back in the papers
Sheila Solarin widow of the late educationalist Tai Solarin cried
out that pupils entering J.S 1 could neither read nor write
English, in her short take she noted the absence of teachers to
teach and very few people I am sure noticed the little piece which
was tightly squeezed at the letters to editor corner of the
Guardian Newspapers.
The bitter truth is that we
are reeling out nonsense from our Primary stage to the
highest level of education. We are cursed with a
leadership that is at loss to what the cure is. We have
developed a set of students whose parents bribe up the
academic ladder because teacher will teach nonsense after
all. Our schools today at best are filled with frustrated
persons that are still holding the chalk for lack of what
next to do. Every year no one is really taking stock of
the number of University manpower leaving the shores of
this nation never to return and we just sit and term it
brain drain, when in truth it has become a complete DRAIN,
brain and belly, soul and spirit.
We are a nation of
largely intelligent illiterates so we do not
bother about statistics, in most Universities a
student goes through a University education
without the benefit of experiencing a Professor
teach him, or interact with him, the days when
students sought admission into schools based on
the reputation of some Professors are gone.
Instead we have scholars who have built reputation
for Rank Xeroxing Philip Kotler's marketing text
word for word as handout on a ‘buy and pass
basis’, that is when the teacher is not a Mr.
Lecturer insisting that Bimbo must go the whole
length of her skirt to pass.
Sometime ago
the raging issue was a dress code for
students of schools of higher learning,
then I asked should we not be ashamed that
we have stooped this low, what happened to
days when the fear of a teacher was
wisdom. The fear of a teacher was enough
for a student to know he/she needs to
dress decently. Now to hell with the Vice
Chancellor, after all he who goes to
equity must go with clean hands.
We
cannot guarantee any form of free
education, most Governors have
turned state bursary allocations
into political tools, that is when
it is not intelligently and
crookedly sent to
England to buy a mansion in cash.
Government at the center is
confused, one minute it is 6-3-3-4
system, now we hear it would be
9-3-4, only Allah knows if the
next one won’t be 16-16-16. Till
this moment no one has explained
the rational behind the change,
the merits or otherwise why we had
to abandon the last system which
was barely practiced for a decade
plus. A nation that jokes with the
education of its youth nay its
citizen would have itself to blame
not just in the future but even
now it suffers it.
Teachers...crave my
indulgence some months
back in
Nigeria, yes our
Nigeria, our beloved naija
parents made their kids
sit for the yearly GCE
exams and to imagine that
the parents in question
needed the result to
register with the
Teachers' Institute. One
wonders what direction our
insanity is heading
towards. Teachers no
longer teach, they no
longer reach out to their
wards, not that one blames
them, with a President
that has never hidden his
disdain for teachers and
education we cannot expect
better.
At the just
concluded National
Council on
Education meeting
the Minister For
Education, Mrs Oby,
can out smoking
but then give her
and this
government some
time the smoke
will die down to a
point you hardly
will notice the
ashes, all she
hard to say was on
the indiscrimatory
award of honourary
doctorate degrees,
to this I say good
morning to her,
the problem
besetting the
educational sector
has gone beyond
the award of
degrees. I know a
Governor that
since 1999 at the
last count had got
13 all from
Nigerian
Universities, so
my Sister Oby,
leave that one,
before Oby, was
the post -JAMB
woman, how did she
end, already I
hear there is a
power tussle
between the
current Minster
and the Senate
committee
chairwoman Joy
Emordi, while our
education is on
fire, those
concerned with
salvaging what is
left engage in
personality
clashes.
In my
daily
routine
with
Newspapers
I am
beseeched
with
adverts
for
schools
offering
better
education,
from
Cyprus to
Singapore
to
Jamaica
and no one
bothers
about the
number of
parents
and
students
seeking
alternate
education.
Why
do
we
like
to
lie
to
ourselves...I
never
will
know,
I
can
authoritatively
tell
you
that
in
the
whole
of
Plateau
State,
Abia,
Kano
and
Osun
States
by
random
sampling
no
public
school
has
a
functional
up
to
date
complete
computer
unit
with
Printer
and
Governors
will
tell
you
how
they
have
transversed
from
Galilee
to
Riyadh
in
improving
education
and
the
government
at
the
center
is
preaching
info-tech.
The school feeding programme has stopped were it started because it was more political than not. Again we are pursuing a dumb, deaf and blind policy of free education tagged UBE, what happened to UPE, nothing other than failure of policy and it is already happening to the UBE reform. The Government does not have the manpower to cater for the children that are going to start the programme, some states are not even prepared, so we are going to employ crash teachers to teach crash pupils that will crash retrogressively till they crash land with empty heads.
I intend to establish a primary school right in my car garage because I love kids, no, because its good business, just imagine I have 200 children and they pay only, I mean only 10 thousand Naira and I have five teachers who have any qualification, the only basic requirement is we are of the same faith or tribe, what else does one need to tell you that business is good. What the kids are taught is secondary and off course they go on a lot of excursions which the parents pay for. This in summary is the typical run of the mill private nursery and primary school and we looked at these kids and called them future leaders of tomorrow, I can say that tomorrow, certainly is bleak.
I have blamed government, teachers, but sadly the worst culprit in falling standards of education remains our parents whose values have also taken a deep, the days when parents insisted that their wards passed with good grades to move to the next class has been substituted to an era that this same parents now buy question papers ahead of the exams, bribe examiners, make sure the kids study courses they lack interest and lack the required basics, and then we turn around to blame government is double hypocrisy and crying wolf where there are no rats.
Parents do not even know what their wards are doing in school; “let me see your homework” is now a strange phrase in families. Who really cares, the Ibos to Alaba in droves, and our Yoruba brothers to the mechanic workshop and how about us in the North, its worse because our leaders are fighting for a center. These are no apprentice by calling but because of lack of choice. An uneducated populace is one of the recipes for catrostrophic socio-eco-political, cultural and steady future, a nation where anything will always go. We need to go back to the All-Wise One, or else, this terrible reality will go a stage beyond repair.
|
