School na scam? Rethinking the value of education in today's Nigeria

If education is expensive, then try ignorance, they say, which is very true because education makes you elite and gives you the ability to think critically and make informed decisions even though you don't work in the exact field of your study.

I grew up to meet the 6-3-3-4 system of education, which in reality is 3-6-3-3-4, where the first 3 are the years spent in kindergarten, 6 is the basic years, which is primary one to six, the second 3 is the years spent in junior secondary, the next 3 years are for senior secondary school, and finally there are four years in the university, which might differ based on the school attended and the course studied.

Upon a little research carried out, I found out that in the year 2008 the system was changed to a 9-3-4 system of learning in which the first 9 years are for basics, then 3 years of senior secondary school, and then college or university.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321216454_Transition_from_the_6-3-3-4_to_the_9-3-4_System_of_Education_in_Nigeria_An_Assessment_of_Its_Implementation_on_Technology_Subjects

Courses for medicine and veterinary medicine take about seven years, and some engineering students spend five years, and in some schools of technology, every course you do takes five years to complete.

Personally I would say persistence got me where I am educationally today because it took me 10 years after my senior secondary education to finally get an admission. Some people in the same situation as I was went to do other things, but I persisted, and today I am a graduate of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Gender is no limit when it comes to education because time and time again we have seen women lead in various career parts, but sadly I come from a part of the country where so much emphasis isn't placed on education, although all that is changing gradually now.

A lot of our female counterparts after their senior secondary education go to get jobs, either as sales representatives or as secretaries in some small firms, and the reason for this isn't far-fetched. For some it is financial constraints, and for others they don't really see the value of tertiary education.

And with the current economic situation of my country, a lot of people even now say things like "school na scam" because back in the day you would see companies and corporate organizations compete for graduates, but now you see even first-class graduates sometimes turning to driving Uber, contrary to what they may have studied, because the labor market is populated.

And as I bring it home, you find that even for the ones that are trying to get tertiary education at all costs, the education system is almost choking them. I mean, I just found out from some students that there has been a 65,000 increment in school fees for the next academic section.

This is like almost an 80% increment compared to what I paid as my final year school fees. I know how many times the SUG student union government had to have meetings with the school's management to reopen the school's portal so that people who couldn't meet up with initial deadlines could finally pay their school fees.

Some had to take some soft loans, and fundraising was done on behalf of others just so they don't lose their studentship.

As for the ratio of boy to girl going to school from my senior secondary school class and based on the environment, it would be 7:3, and for my university class, I could say 4:6 because we had more ladies in class.

At the end of the day I believe education is one of the greatest tools for shaping mankind and society at large. Even though the cost of getting an education these days is high, with persistence anything is achievable because if you want it bad enough, nature has a way of giving it to you, and gender shouldn't be a barrier because every child deserves to be educated.

Image used was AI generated based on my prompt.