THE MISERY OF OUR HALF-BAKED EDUCATION SYSTEM .

THE MISERY OF OUR HALF-BAKED EDUCATION SYSTEM

Many people believe in the concept of coincidence, very few have a contrary belief, a category to which I belong.
What is happening, however, therefore between the government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is, by all ramifications, a consciously conceived action which we can in no way justify as coincidental or accidental. Just like most controversial issues, it has been brewing for a very long time, but just gone sour of recent.

We should not be averse to the fact that no goal-driven individual would embark on any activity, honour any agreements or make any such promises as would constitute a barrier to his laid out plans. It is, therefore, an insult on the JEG-led Federal Government of Nigeria, if we think it would go out of its way to honour an agreement that would ensure the delivery of quality education and intellectual emancipation of its young populace.

The Federal Government of Nigeria is comprised of very intelligent individuals. These special advisers, ministers and other members of the executive cabinet cannot be said to be ignorant of the vital role of quality education in the development of any society.

Why then do they build schools and award face-value scholarships? You may ask. In a rhetoric reply, I would also ask, why did the colonial lords of those days establish schools in Nigeria and in their other colonies? Just like our government, they realised the immense opportunities accrued from a half-baked education, they know it is an even greater weapon than illiteracy. They give you schools, but pay your teachers miserably well that they would lack all necessary and required motivation to teach. They put at par 'tuition-free education' and 'free education' to suggest they are both the same.

Half-baked students are graduated every year, possessing nothing but the ability to read and write, purely deficient in any skill and totally dependent upon the magnanimity of the government and its capitalist financiers of white collar jobs. This, in turn, leaves them dependent on and subservient to the exploitative and corruptive tendencies that come with these jobs.

The Federal Government is not lost on the fact that quality education would punch a hole in that hot-air balloon of corruption and 'beyond the law' status they defiantly assume, so they give us half-baked education, just enough to keep us literate but intellectually docile, just enough to get us on the queue of job-seekers without asking any questions, just enough to make us believe that if we had a better JAMB score, we would be in a University now, as if there are enough universities to absorb every intending student. Just enough half-baked education to make us believe graduating with a third-class amidst a very anti-human school environment is entirely your fault.

The amount of time left till Election period decreases rapidly with everyday this ASUU strike progresses. What better campaign instrumentalities would our idle undergraduates be for these self glorified political messiahs who would show a feigned sympathy and interest in quality education!  But that is exactly the problem. We have a population of educationally half-baked graduates at their beck and call. If a government does not treat you well, Of course it will never expect to be re-elected. If it knows this for a certainty but still proceeds to the polls, it is only a pointer that our intelligence, as far as they are concerned, can be overridden with impunity. Well, now that you know why they do not care about our welfare, we had better address the issues of our half-baked education system and political apathy by starting to concern ourselves with the electoral process and those we should elect to steer the affairs of our beloved country come 2015.