The impact of Education on Nigerians and the country as a whole can’t be denied. It is something that has really helped a lot.
However, I am worried about people who think education is a scam. Should I call them illiterates?
How could they have forgotten so fast that without a basic education, you are a nobody in our society? You can’t even stand amongst your equals.
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This belief is kind of rampant amongst the youths these days that I always ask myself, ”how can I convince my friends to reason with me that education isn’t actually a scam?
So I came up with solutions. But before I share it, I need to change the youths mindset towards education.
Nigerians should see school as a scam but not education.
Here’s my reason – There are many universities out there that the number of students that write carryover exams every year is more than the students in the school.
I had an experience last year, February, during an examination on political science, the students that wrote carryover in my department were actually more than the Year One students. When I saw them, I was actually amazed and furious. I made findings and realized that it was actually the lecturers that caused all the problems we are having in so many universities today especially in the state universities.
I was in a lecture room after our quiz, a political science lecturer came into the class and said, “I don’t care if you have written everything you know, if you don’t bring your money for sorting into my office, you have failed”.
I was astonished. Lecturers like this are the reason why Nigerian students often see education as a scam. But I believe the problem can be solved because there is a solution to every known problem. There are some lecturers that don’t even come to classes.
However, I can recommend two solutions to tackle these corrupt lecturers.
Lecturers attending class regularly: The vice-chancellor should try as much as possible to create a monitoring sheet for all lecturers. In order to fish out the lazy ones that miss classes and as well punish them by suspending such lecturers.
Better still, students should be able to report the lecturer in question just like the one that happened in my school. A female lecturer that came only came once to teach us. The worst part, she covered all the syllabus in that same day. That was five topics in 45 minutes.
You can imagine. She even threatened to fail us if we try to report her but we did and she was suspended for her actions. That acted as a lesson for others.
Lecturers should be paid: I often discovered that some of these lecturers are being owed for months. This could lead anyone to indulge in corrupt practices. They also have bills and families to cater for. If we must tackle corruption in the institution, both parties must be responsible, I mean, the government and lecturers.