Renovating The Educational System Of Nigeria; Plus And Minus

Photo by Burst

In one way or another, we can trace our success back to Education, school has contributed a lot in our lives, and for someone like me, I would forever be grateful to education. In Nigeria, the education sector has fallen. Gone are the days when if you see someone educated you would know without anyone necessarily telling you.

Today, you can find people who are in high college but don't know how to spell and clearly write their names. Those days, you barely find someone who is educated holding tight to the issue of discrimination, tribalism, religion, and the like because his/her mind has been transformed, education then is beyond getting certificates, it affects every sphere of human lives. But the reverse is the case today, we go to school only to get the certificate.

Today you can barely differentiate between someone educated and an illiterate. You won't put the blame completely on the students because most teachers especially in government sectors are not doing their jobs, and again you won't blame the teachers completely because the government is not taking good care of them as expected.

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Everything is just left unchecked, teachers do whatever they want and the offices in charge of inspecting them can't do anything because a lot of them accept bribes from those teachers, Aside from bribes, how do you even inspect someone you don't pay? You see, the government has sold its rights to teachers in the educational sector.

The downside of this is, that instead of schools producing sound students, the direct opposite is what it will be giving to society. It's so pathetic. It's s now left for parents to put extra effort into developing their children otherwise, your child will finish high school and still be dull.

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The Minus

There are so many things I wish to do away with in the educational systems of Nigeria, and one of them is Examination Malpractice. This is one of the biggest problems our educational system is facing. Those days we were taught that he who steals the answer is a thief and would go to hell.

I dreaded malpractice so much back then but today, you hear things like "cheat but don't be caught ". even in elementary, pupils steal answers to pass examinations. it pains me so much, is it that the teachers are not doing their jobs or the pupils are just lazy? The issue of malpractice is spread across all levels of education and it seems as if it's gradually becoming a legal thing.

Most schools only preach against it with their lips but don't take action. A friend told me that she was caught cheating in an examination, the lecturer called her outside and said don't do it again, seized the exhibit, and let her go and continue writing her examination.

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How would those who don't steal answers but study hard be motivated? How would the students even take their studies seriously since they could carry answers into the examination and go scot-free? It's just so unfair. Imagine you spent sleepless nights reading and then someone who didn't even read at all came with answers copied and passed with an A while you get a C or B. If schools want to produce serious students, examination malpractice must be checked appropriately.

So I would make necessary provisions available for checking examination Malpractice in all schools, and anybody who is caught will face the consequences. This is where the cleaning will begin. If others see that culprits are dealt with, they will take their studies seriously.

You may not really understand what I am talking about, for those of you in schools, have you not noticed that students don't visit the library like before? Those days if you go to the library, you won't even find a place to sit because everyone wants to study but nowadays, students only go to the library when they are about to write their project.

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The Plus

What I would love to add to the educational sector of Nigeria is" more of practicals and less of theories* in all levels of education. We have heard much of the theory and it has not been yielding any positive results. Some of us can't even put into practice what we were taught in school because we don't know them when it comes to real-life applications.

People will graduate from school and can't use what they learned from school to earn a living, if the government doesn't employ them that is it, they will be left stranded. It's high time things change. Let's do practicals, those days in high school I copied so many notes and to be frank, I don't know their relevance to date.

Photo by Vanessa Loring

imagine those notes were practicals. Imagine Agriculture is not full of notes but practicals, imagine animal husbandry is practical, imagine biology is practical, imagine geography is practical, imagine business education is practical, imagine that your course is practical, don't you think we would have gone far by now? Think about it.

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