Education: So many unrelated courses

Each time I see a topic to talk about the educational system in Africa, I always have a lot to say because I have seen a lot of things that are not in place—or let me say, unnecessary—especially with the curriculum.

Getting to this stage in my life, I think our school curriculum should be designed in a way that subjects not related to people’s fields should not be forced on them. Does that mean that there shouldn’t be general courses? Of course, there should be, but those subjects should be seen as relevant in one’s way of life and not the other way around. A clear example of such a general subject is English for countries that have English as their official language, and other languages for those that have those languages as their official language.

What about Mathematics? Mathematics should be included, at least a little, to make students understand the basics of arithmetic, which is used in our daily life—such as addition, division, subtraction, and multiplication. The deeper parts, such as dy/dx, should only be taught to people who are into mathematical courses.

When I was in my first and second year in school, I was in the engineering department, and we did Technical Drawings, where we had to go to school with tools such as technical drawing boards, with the drawing items locked in a box. It was hard for some of us, but we pulled through.

But guess what? We had other departments whose fields were very far from engineering, but they were forced to take the technical drawing course in their department, and it was tagged as a “borrowed course.” These people really got frustrated by the whole thing because they had to buy all the equipment to be used for just one semester, which was about four months. Also, it was difficult for them because the whole thing was unrelatable to them. Although, it benefited some of us in engineering because we were teaching and doing assignments for these people and we got paid.

I kept imagining what they would use the idea of technical drawing for in their field or in the future. There's absolutely no need for that. The idea of forcing them to learn technical drawing was so irrelevant!

This same thing occurs to everyone in school. In one way or another, there are courses they are forced to learn which are not related in any single way to their field.

Can’t our school system just concentrate on teaching students the important things, important subjects, and do away with the stress of making students unnecessarily broad?

You’ll agree with me that most of the courses you studied or are still studying in school have not added anything to your life. When I talk about this, I usually refer to how I was forced to learn the French language during my secondary school days, and till today, I don’t know anything about it. Yes, not even a single thing. Okay, maybe knowing when someone is speaking French is part of the blessing. But what benefit is there if I can recognize it but can’t understand or speak it? Lol.

During those times in school, we were flogged so badly just to understand it, but no way—those canes didn’t soften our brains to understand anything. Honestly, I regret those moments a lot, even though they now appear as a joke whenever I look back at those days.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Hiveghana prompt

The photo used is mine