HOW OUR SYSTEM IS KILLING STUDENTS

I know that I am very privileged.

I am amongst the lucky ones. I was the Senior Prefect twice. Press Club president. Aced my SSCE and landed in the University immediately after graduation. Of course, there are twists and pains in between but I tell you, the system was already rigged for me right from the beginning. I participated in debates, quizzes, and competitions; these things prepared me for all the things I am now doing. I learned speech-making, essay writings, and social skills. In my whole set, maybe only 5 or 6 of us participated in such activities.

Because I already showed academic prowess, people expected that from me. Everywhere I went, it was normal to receive and demand intelligent thoughts from Lengdung. This is an advantage. I had to be intelligent, even when it was tough, I couldn’t manage to not be- my reputation was on the line and I already have encouragement to be, so why not?

Because I was already achieving things, people prayed for me and expected me to achieve more. I received encouraging words. Everyone told me they believed in me. It was good. The universe was cheering for me.

Because I was a Christian in a Christian society, everyone expected I showed some morals. I did. It helped me that people expected good morals from me.

Because my parents were responsible people in society, everyone expected me to be responsible. People believed I was responsible, they treated me that way and I reciprocated the gesture. Their trust in me meant I could not afford to be a nuisance.

Because I was already attempting to read, people believed I was a reader. They asked me about books I hadn’t read, it made me read more. I was a good reader, it came naturally.

Because I had all of these things going for me, I had people who wanted to come into my life. A lot of good people, beautiful amazing and great people.

Because I had passed my test excellently previously, teachers kindly asked me whenever I failed.

But I am only one. Maybe there are usually at most 3 or 4 of us in a class that had such strong records. For my Primary and Secondary schools, I was in a deeply competitive school. Police Children School and All Nations Academy were elite schools. If you attended these schools, you are amongst the brain box of the nation. It is normal that it is people like me that would be able to make speeches, defend themselves, speak out against any system, build their professional life, be CEO’s and eventually be successful. Now, flip the coin to the child who was at the far end of the class scores when we were busy scoring 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. They had no future already; their future has been forgotten or buried by the same system that was supposed to help them become adults. Imagine the discouraging words, the unsupportive teachers you had, the lack of responsible parenthood, the lack of expectations from parents and teachers and society, the shame one had to carry every day knowing that they cannot be “Lengdung”, the lack of exposure, the lack of mentors and good friends, the lack of support for your dreams, the lack of “right to dream even”, the ridicule, they were just expected to  fail, whenever they failed, it was normal, a part of the system, we expected it…… (I am sorry if you had to go through this) And whether the system celebrated them or not, they indeed became adults. What sort of adults did they become? You all know!

The Nigerian society and schools are unfair, people like Lengdung are not the only children in this world. And in fact, it is wrong that we are the only type of examples they must use.

Image from Unsplash

But how many of these schools do we have? These schools have at most 500 students.

Government schools have 1,200 students in a single year! There is government school scattered across all the wards in the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria. But already, the system has already been rigged against them. We do not expect anything from them, we are surprised when they go to the university, when the win debate competitions, when they become leaders and when they break out of the mold. And they rarely do. So, already, right from childhood, we are already raising people who will fail and we are FINE with that.

Every child should have the right to dream. Everyone has the right to all the skills he or she needs for a good future. Every child deserves to be prepared.

WE MUST CHANGE THIS.

P.S: You can say that we have people who grew from this same system and are doing great, I agree. But they are the “exceptions”. Aren’t we killing ourselves when we are raising a large chunk of the population to simply fail?