The Future Might Be Bleak for Nigerian Public School Students.

I feel sorry for the many young Nigerians who attend public secondary schools in Nigeria. I really feel sorry for them. I look at them, and think, you have no idea how unfortunate you are. Many notable Nigerians attended public secondary schools but this is not the 60s or the 70s or even the 90s. This is year 2016 and the entire public secondary school system in Nigeria has become a hot mess.

A child’s education starts from the home, and when a child is born to uneducated Nigerian parents, such a child is already at a loss. I believe that children raised by educated parents are provided with better foundations for learning. They are able to pick words from family members and listen to or participate in intelligent conversations around the home. More so, most educated Nigerians can afford to send their kids to private schools.

For the uneducated parents (who are usually poor, and who might even value education) they are stuck with the degenerate public schools in Nigeria. There is a viral video of a school principal in Edo state Nigeria who couldn’t read what she was asked to read. She couldn’t pronounce many of the words. Words like affidavit and appeal. If the principal of a school can fumble that badly, god knows what sort of education the students of that school are receiving. Many public educators are wrecking with mediocrity.

Public schools in Nigeria have also been afflicted by corruption and greed. By the way, in Nigeria, everybody who works with or for the government is in one way or another corrupt. Public schools in Nigeria lack basic facilities like chairs for the students to sit on. I am disgusted just thinking that education funds are also being embezzled by government officials.

In 2013, I came across a story about some government officers (in the ministry of education, Ogun state) who had allegedly misappropriated education funds. Some of them were women. You would think that a woman’s position on embezzling education funds would be altogether different because at a point in our history many traditional settings denied girls access to education, but corruption is a b*tch!

Every morning on my way to work, I see many public school students in their hundreds (around Ijora, Apapa, Lagos state) roaming the streets, laughing and chatting away. Almost all of these children come from hard neighbourhoods of gangs and hooligans, where dropping out of school is the norm. And many of them will drop out of school to take on the street life; except we all do something.

All I am asking for is your own 2kobos. You will never be able to stop the crippling effects of corruption on all innocent average Nigerians. Your efforts may not even affect the increasing rate at which many Nigerians drop out of school, but your efforts matter all the same. Because for every child whose future you alter positively, you contribute to the work of giving Nigeria a new/ better narrative.

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