IGS @ 50: A Nostalgia

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have to altered” – Nelson Mandela  Today  Ilorin Grammar School (IGS) Alumni Association commences  a 50th anniversary programme of the school which yours comradely graduated from.  The week long anniversary  programme includes awareness walk from the […]

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have to altered” – Nelson Mandela

 Today  Ilorin Grammar School (IGS) Alumni Association commences  a 50th anniversary programme of the school which yours comradely graduated from.  The week long anniversary  programme includes awareness walk from the Emir’s Palace, Novelty football match, anniversary symposium, prayers session, launching of Alumni magazine as well as a gala nite. IGS established February on the 6th of February, 1967 belongs to the first generation of community schools later to be taken over by the government.

Kwara State was created on the 27 May 1967, when the Federal Military Government of General Yakubu Gowon broke the four regions that then constituted the Federation of Nigeria into 12 states. To that extent the school is as old as the state. There was once a Nigeria (with apology to Chinua Achebe!) in which communities were in healthy competition to educate their children. It was a poorer Nigeria without the present cheap oil revenue. But the then Nigerian people were, nonetheless, rich in values that included giving out of the limited resources for the building of community schools.  Schools such as Government Secondary School, Ilorin, were established in 1914. In the whole lot of the then Northern region, the first community secondary school is Offa Grammar School Offa, established in 1943. ECWA Girls Secondary School, Omu-Aran was established in 1958 and Oro Grammar School, Oro, Kwara State,  was established in 1958. These pioneer schools produced the first generation of educated work force in the developmentalist Northern region.

Reflection on IGS at 50 reopens the discussion on the need to reinvent public education. I enrolled in the school 1972 for a five year secondary education which lasted until 1977. IGS is a public school which provided space for the children of the rich, poor alike in search of knowledge. It was a mixed school of children of different faiths and origin with healthy competition for knowledge that was gender and religion blind. For those whose parents could afford, there was provision for boarding which nurtured self-development among students. Of course there was provision for day students. But we were all blinded by equal provisions that included free books, free uniforms and quality education instructions. Throughout my school days in the seventies, we did not know what is now called power failure. Indeed we never heard of generators, which means we had no excuse, but to read and read. There was uninterrupted electricity supply! Indeed we had a “light out” period, at 10 pm during which we must switch off the light to sleep to prepare for the next school day. We had open field for compulsory sporting activities which some of us had kept for today; foot balling, cycling and jogging among others. The question is why would a relatively poorer Nigeria of the 70s would be able to maintain public schools than a relatively richer Nigeria of 2017?

The last time I cycled to my former school two years ago as part of my birthday activities, it saddened to see a hitherto public school in a state of disrepair and near abandonment. Many thanks to the current leadership of the Alumni Association led Mr Alabi Folorunsho Owolabi for raising the awareness about inventing IGS through the 50th anniversary activities. The point cannot be overstated that we need an emergency in the education sector! The country’s education crisis has almost been defined in terms of falling quality, incoherent curriculum, examinations malpractices, poor funding, dilapidated structures and abysmally poor sector management. Very few do remember the teachers, the real drivers of education and their status.

Nostalgia for IGS reminds me of eminent committed teachers such as the late pioneer principal, Mr Peter Olatunbosun, a great historian and disciplinarian who instilled AMBITION and GOOD MANNERS the motto of the school in all the students. Nigeria union of Teachers (NUT) has rightly waged endless struggle to bring to the fore critical issues begging for attention in the country’s education sector. Let us restore the status of teachers, (the working teaching women and men in both private and public schools) that under intolerable conditions are expected to build and sustain a knowledge society.

Nigeria has demonstrated significant commitment to the great task of meeting the Millennium Development goal with respect to achieving universal primary education.  However all this pursuit comes to naught until we factor the conditions, quantity and quality of teachers who are expected to make the miracle of educational transformation possible? Robust curriculum design, state-of the-art new class rooms, a dozen Ministers of Education and hundreds of commissioners of education without motivated teachers mean mass failures! Time to reflect on the motivation and productivity of teachers, start with the restoration of the age long dignity of teaching profession.

“Teaching is the oldest profession that teaches all other professions” goes a popular saying. In the past non-payment and delayed payment of teachers’ salaries were unthinkable. In the past, governor would not impress anybody either that he had paid salary as “at when and due” as it is now the fashion to showcase the scorecard of present day governors. Teachers cultivated the well-acknowledged quality human capital of developmentalist Nigeria of the 70s and 80s. It is time we paid the teachers beyond the “minimum” or “relativities”” and all those dignified words for income poverty. Nostalgia for IGS at 50 means we must reinvent teachers in public schools. Happy anniversary to my Alma Malta at 50!