A Student’s View Of Nigerian School SystemByOkoh Emeka Moscow Russia
“Education is leading of human souls to what is best and making what is best out of them” said John Ruskin. I choose to start this write up with those words of Ruskin because they exemplify in a very simple but intelligible form the unquantifiable need for education in bri nging to humanity the best that he has ever hungered for. Education can be understood in different ways; a child as he develops begins to acquire some knowledge from his parents, family members and in fact, from everything around him and this undoubtedly can equally be classified as a form of Education. For clarity purposes however, I must state that the Education, which will be discussed in this article, is the formal education- the process of learning and obtaining knowledge through an established school system.
While some countries are quite far ahead in trying to achieve this goal of making the best out of human souls others are terribly lagging behind;, the issue of literacy is still an actual and present problem facing so many countries especially the countries of the so called “third world” in which Nigeria occupies a very “comfortable” place. The problem of education exists in one form or the other in every country but the educational problems faced by the developing countries and Nigeria in particular are so huge that every conscious and conscience minded will not help but be seriously worried.
I was moved to hit the keyboard after my encounter with some of the new students who came from Nigeria to join other students from about 120 countri es of the world at the Russian Peoples Friendship University, after that encounter, I had a flash back to an article in The Guardian Newspaper of 26th July 2005 with an eye-catching caption “Nigerian graduates unfit for employment, say industry chiefs”. The authors made an impressive writing, according to them; Nigerian tertiary institutions are in deep crises, employers, in the country feel disgusted with the abysmal performance of the so called graduates who as it may be, have second class or even first class certificates.
But come on, we are all aware that the problem goes deeper than the horror in our tertiary institu tions, we cannot forget that for a house to stand it needs a strong foundation, the 6-3-3–4 system of Education in Nigeria is a wonderful idea, but like anything about that country the system has flopped and seriously needs overhaul. Not until I arrived Moscow I never had a real idea of how messed our school system is, and after 5 years of studying in Moscow it has even become clearer that we are really in trouble.
Presumably we have a unified system of secondary education but at the same time it seems that its application varies from state to state. From the senior secondary classes, students are usually grouped into three classes of Art, Science and Commercial. In some schools or in some states, that division is enforced in a way that those subjects viewed as science subjects have nothing at all to do with the art or commercial students and those viewed to be strictly commercial subjects have nothing to do with art or Science and vise versa. My elder brother, who studied in Enugu, although he has always wanted to study Law, and that of course automatically placed him in Art class, still they studied physics and chemistry, accounting, and all other art, commercial and science related subjects till he got to SS3 when he had to choose 9 subjects to do in WAEC.
I had my senior secondary in Lagos; the experience was completely different although the system seems the same. The classes where equally divided into three groups of art, commercial and science, there may be nothing fundamentally wrong with that, I mean the division in itself, I don’t share the believe that grouping seriously matters, what matters however is the application, and application in this case means the way the subjects meant for secondary students are administered. I came out of secondary school without any knowledge of Geography not to mention Physics and chemistry, why? Because these subjects are considered science and have nothing to do with a bloody art student like me. Just as separation of the three arms of government is strictly applied in most democratic nations so also the principle of art, science, commercial separ ation or segregation is strictly adhered to by some schools in Nigeria, and I can’t think of any better example where this principle is respected than my alma-mater . There, apart from English, mathematics, Biology and Economics, students in different groups have nothing in common.
When I landed in Moscow and found myself in a group with students from 8 countries, Emeka was the only Nigerian there and here we don’t just look at ourselves as private students, we all acted more like ambassadors appointed to represent his country in an international gathering. I was quick to realize that t he best art student can also be the best mathematician, the best economist, Chemist, and even Physic. I realized that in the preparatory faculty where I was supposed to study Russian language, that Geography and History are compulsory subjects no matter whatever direction am going, it dawned on me that from first course not only will I study mathematics but also Conception of Natural Sciences which involved not just mathematics but physics and chemistry.
Among students from all other countries I found out that I was the only student who had no knowledge of physics, chemistry and geography, and after rounds of embarrassment, funny looks and one typi cal question that usually follows whenever I announce that I never did any of those subjects, I decided to keep my problems to myself, behave as the dumbest in the class and then work extra harder to cover up. People, quite frankly astonished usually ask “what then did you study if you did not study physics, chemistry and geography”. Funny enough, the teachers usually start with such sentence, “let us remind ourselves what we did in the middle schools”, am sure they would have vomited out of disgust if I had told them “wetin be this, I was an art student”.
I never stopped asking myself, what type of graduate would I have been if I had studied i n Nigeria? Would I have been one of those unemployables? A normal graduate is one who can have a fair discussion in almost all issues but specialist in his specialization. Of course most of our graduates cannot be termed normal if a mechanical engineering student of prestigious University of Lagos disappointed me when my uncle asked him to turn something anti-clock wise and all he was able to do was stare at him like a morons, this brings me to the encounter I talked about in the beginning of this write up.
We had about 12 new students this year from Nigeria w ith a good number of them wearing the image of commercial and art students; as a senior student and the VP of the Nigerian students Union, I called them to explain and advice them on the challenges they are about to face, knowing what I went through, I called out the so called commercial and art students and pledged to always lender any help that I can, I agreed with them that I will be giving them extra classes on subjects like Geography and any other that my ability and time can permit. Then came the D-day, I had the shock of my life, it appeared that none, I mean not a single person was able to quickly point out where Nigeria is located in the map, I was disappointed watching them search for the giant of Africa everywhere even in the Americas. When I expressed my disgust, the answer was, unanimous and not unexpected, “I was art student”, I felt even sorrier for our school system when they failed to mention or point out the number of continents we have and what there are called. These are the most elementary questions that a 3 year old Russian will answer within a blink of an eye, it is not exaggeration, I have not met a Russian that does not know Russian map, but our secondary school pass outs were busy searching for Nigeria in South America. God have mercy!
A house with a loose foundation is prone to collapse, I personally feel that the problem with our school system starts with its very foundation, if we fail to reform and find solution cap able of increasing the standard of what the system can offer, then for many years to come we will continue to produce what I will term illiterate professors.
OKOH EMEKA Moscow Russia
|