If our educational system have crippled and suffered so much disdain
in recent times, the problem I surmise isn’t just a thing with the
insensitivity of this government towards education which they say is the
light of the citizenry of any nation but on the other hand, a great
deal of the problem should also be blamed on the entire staff and
management of the nation’s citadels of learning. If you say the deficit
in our educational standard is but a two-edged sword, then you will just
be perfectly right.
The height of malady, corruption, bias and favoritism that has become
the order of the day in our various universities has rendered education
and everything it stands for nothing more than a charade. It has too
soon buried the pride of education in the vault of no return and I must
also add that it has dissuaded many a student who swore from day one to
play the game of schooling in accordance with the rules of the game by
getting married to their books, burning the midnight oil, looking
haggard and sacrificing everything called pleasure all in a bid to smile
to the board when examination results roll out, but at the end of the
day, they are left obfuscated, flabbergasted and astounded when their
efforts are not reflected in the result they are forced to contend with.
We know examination is not and can never be the litmus paper on which
knowledge is tested, but courtesy and responsibility demands that
examination scripts shouldn’t be marked with the least of sentiments or
emotions if not for anything, to keep faith with the tenets and pride on
which the lecturing profession in anchored upon.
What picture is it that I have labored thus far to paint? I hate that
you may have gotten it twisted all along and I apologize exceedingly.
The foundation, on which this piece of writing is built, is on the acme
of irregularities that has now become articles of faith in our nation’s
universities. In an educational system where you need not the customary
reading and studying the hell out of your life to pass examination, in
an academic arena where lecturers and people that call themselves dons I
am sorry to say, have sworn by Jupiter to use the power of their red
pen maliciously on students script, in an educational setting where with
the naira which they say has no value strapped around your pants, you
qualify to join the league of many others involved in this academic
crime of obtaining high grades through fowl means. When I mean high
grades, I mean grades that cannot be reconciled with the student’s
performance because as far as I know, a lecturer may have the golden
privilege to wield the red pen, but he/she is not the arbiter of the
“who is who” in the class he/she is responsible for, but on the contrary
the students are the arbiter of the good, the bad and the ugly of
students and not necessarily the lecturers. In an educational system
where lecturers now trade good grades with their student friend’s in
exchange for God knows what. What could you not say of an academic
system where students and lecturers are engaged in aggravated romantic
skirmishes in order to satisfy opposing or conflicting interests best
known to them?
As a result of this ugly trend that has adulterated our already
divorced educational standard; the society is overwhelmed with the
torrents of half-baked graduates or fake graduates littered in the labor
market with results that cannot be lived up to or defended even though
they are ever ready to emblem them……isn’t it madness or taking credits
for efforts not tendered? My sympathy goes to very many a student who
have been left not only demoralized but also discouraged and ripped of
the wings to fly as a result of not having friends in high places or
choosing not to dine in the same table with these fellows who have sold
out their conscience for God knows how much. Not even the government is
left out of these chains of consequences as the nation also indirectly
suffers to a great extent when she is not getting the full potentials
expected from her massive population. When a bad act is praised and
irrigated and a good deed is worn a badge of disdain, then the society
becomes one where excellence is crucified on the cross of sentiments and
failure exalted on the throne of emotions in sharp contrast of what it
is supposed to be.
A lot have been left at the mercy of the so-called lecturers in our
institutions of higher learning leaving the value of education in a
double jeopardy. The Nigerian university commission unfortunately
enough, has allowed so many evil to be perpetrated under its nose. Many
years before now, a student who feels his effort is not in any way
paralleled in his performance, has every single leverage to apply to the
senate for a retrieval and re-marking of his answer script in honesty
and fairness, but today, this tradition of old have become a taboo or
something close to an anathema such that a student who thinks of
engaging in such becomes an object of scorn in his department and if
ever he gets away with it by any luck, then flesh and blood wouldn’t
have done it all but a spiritual intervention from the highest of
heavens. It is a truism that too many scripts are been heaped on the
desks of these lecturers begging for the succor of marking, collating
and grading at the dawn of examinations, but it is also a gospel truth
that whoever receives payment for services rendered, must return such
gesture into diligent discharge of his duties in faith with the
covenants of his/her employment. The educational system is not an avenue
neither is it an arena where privileged so-called lecturer’s fight to
victimize students who may have gotten into their bad books as a result
of our infallible human nature and a student’s script cannot and should
not be a ground where evil is returned for evil. Life is too complicated
and way too absurd to be without frailty. If this premise is deductive
enough, then lecturers must learn how to settle scores with poor
students who may have by commission or omission stepped on their toes
one on one within the confines of their office as learning does not end
in the classrooms alone. Instead of exhibiting malice on the scripts of
these students thereby denting their grade point average, they should
play the parental role of correcting and not otherwise. In addition,
emotional feelings for certain students and most especially the female
folks shouldn’t be the sine-qua-non of excellence.
We have had enough of this practice of crucifying meritocracy on the
cross of mediocrity and neither can we any longer condole with
excellence sacrificed on the altar of sentiments. If there is a
profession that is worthy to be a victim of such nefarious acts,
certainly it cannot be the lecturing profession which I was told that
practitioners are to receive the returns for their efforts in heaven.
When lecturers choose to play with prejudice as though their hearts and
heads have not been loosened or fertilized by education, they tend to
become something else and as such shouldn’t be allowed the comfort and
confines of the classroom with students.
Education is something I want to be considered as also sacrosanct and
therefore the game must be played in line with the laid down codes and
ethics of the profession sentiments and emotions apart. Only those who
the cap fits should subsist and the quacks must be shown the exit door
for Nigerian students have had enough already.
Source InformationNigeria.org
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