Education is not fun anymore

I remember my secondary school days for so many reasons. I made some of the best friends whilst cropped in a boarding facility that feed us okra, only made edible with geisha. Punishments, massacre, oh yes that too. We had to rush for bread and eggs and the visiting days. There was also the "social nights", festivals of arts and culture and sports. I heard some of the most peculiar names in my secondary school, many I have never heard again. We were from different social backgrounds, ethnic and religious groups. School was a mixture of different things and learning was an enriching experience.

My English teacher the very strict Mr. Mustapha will flog us, if we came late to class or did poorly in his tests. His spoken English was nearly flawless despite the lack of retraining. Most of our teachers were not trained after employment and many are still there ( I visited recently) using the same skills from ten years ago to teach a high tech generation. Many before me argued that the standards we enjoyed were nothing compared to the glory 1980s. My beloved school was a Federal Government Girls College.

The Nigerian school system was one of the best in the world attracting foreign scholars, once upon a time.The spoken and written English of Nigerians educated in the 1960s till early 1990s was as good as that of the English man. My focus on English is because that is the official language in Nigeria. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our mother tongues ( I do not subscribe to ignoring local language)but we communicate nationally in English, hence it's importance. Mathematics was also a strong subject, although yours sincerely did not do well in this area. I still managed to get the required credit to gain admission into the university. Most of my closest friends are good mathematicians so somehow it compensates for my lack of it, maybe or maybe not.

I remember preparing for JAMB, WAEC, GCE and NECO. Oh yes I wrote all of them. My parents wanted me to have as many options as possible. I spent many sleepless nights reading for my exams that I remember missing all the latest movies at the time. I became slow socially as I did not know when Usher's new album came out or what channel O was showing for more than six months. It was that tough and it required my full attention, at least so my teachers said. Soon enough, I realized they were right.

So you can understand my disappointment when I read that over 1million students failed JAMB! This is shocking considering the proliferation of private schools who charge high fees with the promise of providing good quality education. The Government has managed to reduce Federal and State schools to community jokes. Save for a few the standard is not the same as it was a few years ago. Equipments have been sold off by some fraudulent people within the system. Teachers are grossly under paid and not motivated, students are focusing on results not learning. Ah! This is too costly.

I am tired of hearing young people who speak in television learned English. Usually they have an accent of sorts but the content of the language is foreign to this WORLD. Hear me even the Americans will not understand a word you said in that accent sometimes you hear it at the Airport terminals. Human resource executives complain that graduates are not employable, yet Government and stakeholders are eating and making merry. We are in a knowledge driven society as foretold by management expert Peter Drucker in his 1985 book "Innovation and Entrepreneurship". President Goodluck Jonathan in a recent facebook post said that knowledge is more value than oil wealth (paraphrasing). His example was APPLE, one of the 21st century's biggest revelations. If you do not live under the rock, you must have heard or use an ipod or ipad, creations of APPLE INC. He sent out his quote in support of new universities that one million people will not get into, no thanks to failing JAMB.

We need as a matter of urgency to address our "education crisis". It used to be so much fun to learn, now the only fun things are Tweeter, Facebook, MTV, STV, musical concerts and the likes. All these can be channeled positively to focus on knowledge acquisition as well. If we allow the current situation to prevail and more students fail JAMB and remain unemployable, we will all pay the price.

Young Hip Naija.