THE COUNTRY OF MY DREAMS-FOR THE GOOD OF NIGERIAN EDUCATION

I am a full grown Nigerian citizen, a student, an innovator, an entertainer and I'm also a concerned citizen of this great nation. I have a dream like Martin Luther King said and its starting to become like that dream might take longer than that of Martin Luther King Jr to come to pass. There has been lots drama that has unfolded this year and even though I don’t want to dabble into everything the main one I cant ignore is the issue of ASUU.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities on the 17^th of December 2013 called of the 6 month old strike and all that I could just think of is ‘if it was the same agreement the FG refused to go ahead with in the start was what they agreed on at the end why did they waste our time in the first place?’ although if ASUU had gone back to school after 4 or 5 months it would have been stupid on their part, in fact at some point I stopped listening to the news concerning ASUU and even the news as a whole. There have been arguments that ASUU is fighting for the future of the Education sector and I find it hard to believe that there is even a cause to fight. The problem with Nigeria is we always put the cart before the horse in all sectors.

We want to fix the education sector and we start from the Tertiary Institutions when the primary institution is not yet fixed, the young minds that would enter these Universities are not well acquainted and well tutored and yet we want them to enter an environment where we want them to become super students. Nigeria is blessed with youths that can acclimatize in any environment and that is why our students are excelling all over the world, and yet in our country we are performing below our normal capacity. There are a couple of things that should change from the roots before the top could actually change. I would give a couple that I think could do it (I'm talking as an aggrieved student that wants the younger generation to have a better education than I did) so if you don’t agree please you could always drop your comments.

The Entrance of University of Lagos

-   Change the curriculum: it is obvious that the curriculum that my parents used in the University is still the same that I am using right now except for some little changes even the ones that were somehow changed were changed awkwardly. My younger brother is in a class called ‘Technical’ in his secondary school and they don’t even go for Biology class or even economics class, is that a change for the better or the worse? If the curriculum is to be changed it is not to focus 15 year olds to specialties that they might not get to continue with in the Universities because some universities would make Biology a general course for all science students even if you are in Architecture, engineering, Estate Manager, quantity surveyor and the likes. So ASUU asking for funds for ‘research’ and infrastructure’ could be good but could also backfire when the students they are arranging it for might not even be prepared to use it, it’s like buying a car for someone that not only cannot drive but is scared of trying.

-    Start from the roots: This problem is not in the University although it’s obvious that it’s only the universities that can stand up to the Federal Government however the primary and/or secondary school should be put in a structural place whereby they would align with the mission and vision of the Universities.

-   PROPER COUNSELING: Most secondary students don’t know which schools offer the best in the courses they want to study and which school has the best structure that would aid their career in that given course they just choose a University based on other things that I don’t want to dabble into now. There should be a proper arrangement for counseling of students and the courses they want to study with either a tour of the school or a brochure even from the school they wish to study.

-    Conducive environment: The Universities should be suitable for learning from the lecture halls to the library and even the lecturers should be friendly. Some lecturers would treat students like they are still primary school pupils and in turn the students behave as such. Once there is a mutual relationship and respect between the students and the lecturers the environment would become more conducive.

In conclusion I would just point out that there could be more that could have been done in our education sector rather than just focusing on the tertiary Institution and thinking once that is fixed every other thing would fall into place. Not only should we train our children and guide them towards where they would be best suited right from their Primary education  but we should also accept their perspective of how they feel things would work because now that the world is a global village through the internet they could easily be sharing knowledge through a smart phone while our teachers still teach them some archaic things and believe they are right. Until we focus on what is right we would continue to fix a solution that would still be a problem to the problem we were trying to fix.