The school should be a place where a child's potentials would be nurtured for the benefit of the society. Sometimes, this is far from our reality; a lot of times actually.
You know, there was this guy in my street; he went to the best primary and secondary school in the city at the time. He attended one of the private universities in the country and finished with a first class. The last time we spoke, he was involved in marketing a product for an MLM Company and was trying to get me into his team. I was overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts. What was the point of all that expensive education? So that he would end up where most of us who attended the low class universities did?
One would think that those who attended these expensive universities will be the hope of this country. With their superior knowledge, they should make inventions and build companies to employ the rest of us. But they end up at same spot: either working in the companies of their rich parents or come into the labor market like the rest of us. There's usually nothing to show for all the money spent on their education. And you know why? There's a huge disconnect between our educational system and the current societal trends/needs.
How does one finish from agricultural economics and go into catering? How does one read dentistry and become a musician? How do you study civil engineering and work in the bank? And then some finish from law school and go into fashion designing. Most times, these businesses or trades are areas they are naturally skilled at. I am also a victim; I read Biology and here I am writing my life away. Why then do we not go for the courses that train us for our natural skills? Why do the university curriculum not cover courses like fashion designing, singing or dancing? Why do we even bother going to the university, spending all those huge sums to come out practicing in fields totally different from what we studied? Isn't it a waste of life, time and resources?
These days people go to universities just to obtain the certificate without the intention to practice what they studied. They just attend to get the title, "University Graduate." For us girls, it even gets worse. "At least she attended the university, she will get a husband." This is for the case of a girl who is advanced in age and doesn't have a job or anything doing for income. Her life gets summarized with the rich icing of a prospective husband, just because she's a graduate. With mindsets like this, the very purpose of education is very defeated.
Education is the hope of any society. It is the only way she advances in trades, economics, technology, medicine, psychology, human relations, politics, etc. When it is now a thing of title or alibi for marriage, it shows how threatened our educational system is.
We are doing this project in this community where we are encouraging reading and writing amongst indigent children of a rural community. Things are so bad here that a child of 9 years cannot spell his name. Our vision is to help such kids to read, write and develop a passion for learning; and we are focused on children in the primary school level. When I think about these kids, my heart breaks. What does the future really hold for them, I ask myself? Many of us finished from good universities and yet are still struggling with life. Many graduates cannot feed themselves or sustain their families. Most who have jobs are very unhappy, insecure of their jobs and are working on jobs they are over qualified and underpaid for. What then is the hope for a child who we are helping to read, write and spell his name in a society that doesn't have any room for him? I've been thinking hard on the kind of education we should be giving them. Hand crafts, maybe. Teach them, they produce and sell them to raise money to but them shoes, books and food. This makes more sense to me, don't you think so?
The state of education in Nigeria and Africa as a whole is critical. It is about time our curriculum and courses are overhauled to meet up with current societal trends and needs. The world is leaving us behind and we have remained recipients of everything countries who invest in education produce. We have remained consumers and are paying dearly for it as we spend billions of dollars on foreign exchange and importations.
If we don't revamp our educational system, we will keep having lawyers who make clothes; engineers who make furniture and women who graduate from university knowing that they can comfortably land a husband. If we don't, we will keep having a society void of vision and order.
Igbokwe Vivian Ijeoma
Nigeria
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