How our education is becoming ‘boko haram-ish’

Have you ever wondered why our government is failing to address the ailing situation of our educational system? Take a look at our universities, they are presently on strike. It is the same with teachers in our primary and secondary schools. Most of our public schools have neither libraries nor laboratories. Where you come  across […]

Have you ever wondered why our government is failing to address the ailing situation of our educational system? Take a look at our universities, they are presently on strike. It is the same with teachers in our primary and secondary schools.

Most of our public schools have neither libraries nor laboratories. Where you come  across any, they are either well stocked with some dusty and outdated literatures that were used to teach the teachers  themselves some ages ago or the chemicals in the laboratories are  already expired ones. Our institutional libraries are now mere reading rooms because they lack the required funding that would make them research centres. Isn’t it astonishing that the majority of the books in most of our libraries are books that have been published 30 – 40 years ago? What current or useful information can those books   offer our students and how can these students be innovative or productive?

If the truth must be told, our leaders have unanimously agreed to declare a boko haram society for our teeming youths. By implication, our youths would turn out to be thugs in order to destabilize election processes. And as boko remains haram in the mean time, their children would continue trooping abroad in order to further their educational pursuit with the aim of coming back after their studies to rule us.

 If boko has not been declared haram in Nigeria, how could the government of a country with a population of about a hundred and fifty million people, with its youths comprising over fourty percent of the entire population, have no regard for education? The most annoying thing is that even the president and his vice president were one time lecturers. We also have some professors in the senate chamber. What attempt have they shown to ensure that the issue at stake is being addressed?

    Even when the educational sector is moving smoothly, some dubious policies will always be made to subdue certain rights of the masses let alone now that boko is systematically deigned haram on us. How then can we achieve development? What should we expect our youths to do while idle at home?

Early last week, it was reported that only 25.99 percent of the students that sat for WAEC exams obtained at least 5 credits including Mathematics and English. Even here, those that managed to scale through with malpractice should not be ruled out. How can we progress then as a nation? Or are we to fold our hands and keep on viewing how events are unfolding?   I think we need to start making enquiries on where the children of political aspirants are studying before we elect then into public office. We can also agitate that our constitution should be made in such a way that every political office holder or top Civil servant must enroll his children into public schools.  Left for me, that is the only way our ailing educational system can be resuscitated.  If not, boko haram will continue to be the aim of the old cargoes in power.

El-Kalash Kamal is a graduate of Library and Information Science from B.U.K and wrote in from Abuja. [email protected]