“ In the 21st century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education..” [Obama]
Teke (not real name) was born in the coastal community of Alama (again name has been changed) with both parents as young adults in their mid twenties.
When Teke was ready for school he was enrolled into the community primary school which happens to be the only primary school in the town and was taught in the native kalabari dialect. Teke would have to skip school at least twice a week since his teacher would have to go fishing on Mondays and Thursdays. Teke would also have to assist his young father in his fishing career by steering the boat for him as he goes fishing. Teke finished primary school and was enrolled into the only secondary school in the community. Unfortunately (or is it fortunately for him), in the secondary school, he had to learn only five subjects (out of the 14 recommended subjects) since the whole school had only two teachers, whom just like their primary school counterparts had to look for food in the river hence skipped school at least once in a week leaving the school with only one teacher at any point in time.
Teke is now 16 years and no longer sees the need to go to school since even his teachers has nothing to show for his education and the influential people around are the ones whom the society would ordinarily describe as miscreants.
Teke is a fictional figure just as the Alama community but the story is true across several communities in the Niger delta region.
What kind of future would we expect from Teke and the over 7 million kids we have in the Niger delta?
Every day we read in the media how billions are spent by the governors of the delta region on projects (whatever that means to them) and still watch this kids wallow in gross illiteracy. The same story year in year out.
The URGENT NEED
The problem with Teke is that, he is not like the illiterate kids in the city who might take to begging or hawking on the street, no! teke stays in a very volatile region.
A region where all he sees while growing up are oil, guns, and gang battle.
He wont just sit and watch, humans are always tempted to act in their best interest and his best interest in this context (as presented to him by his environment) is to join the race. The gang race which will soon be termed as “freedom fighters”. He would have to kidnap and vandalize oil facilities. A simple act by Teke can affect the international price of oil – apparently, he is not aware of this fact.
The leaders of this region really need to act now. Act decisively and aggressively to address this issue.
We are beginning to accept this abominable act of negligence as a norm while this future of millions goes down the abyss.
What can the government do?
A few months ago, I presented some ideas on “HOW WE CAN IMPROVE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FREE EDUCATION POLICY IN RIVERS STATE” as below
The provision of free education in river state is a timely and necessary move at this point in our development but like every government policy, implementation is more important than the policy itself.
In my short time I have seen very fantastic laws and policies that end up being a problem not just to the government but the people also ; for the free education in Rivers state I really want to join my head to see how we cannot just avoid failure but see that it succeeds beyond our dreams.
THE MISSION
To succeed in anything one must firstly be clear of the intended outcome(s) of the pursuit; in this case I believe the general objective is for us to have a better educated society as will be evidenced in better living standards as a result of improved collective and individual decision making.
Currently, the whole education system of the country is in state of confusion and dilapidation and in a dire need for rescue, as a state we can separate our self from such crisis by taping from the good ideas of the national system and literally walking in opposite direction to the non-effective and non-efficient practices as I will enumerate here.
Being a product of a state education and also having seen how education is meant to be in a first world country I hope my suggestions will be timely and workable.
PRE-PRIMARY SCHOOLS
From observation one can point that the world has gone past the days where a child’s education starts from the primary school, it has been scientifically prove that those who start to learn good stuff early always have stronger advantages over the late starters, to this effect the state can implement the following:
If you look well in Nigeria, you will notice that most private primary schools often include a nursery school hence the name Xyz Nursery and Primary school as a matter of urgency let all our state and community primary schools be converted immediately into nursery and primary schools this will add a little burden to the present facilities available hence the need to hire about 5 addition teachers for each school and possibly (where the need arises) increase the number of classrooms; but I believe the current facilities with regards to classrooms can be structurally adjusted to include or create free class rooms for this purpose.
I know the setting up of exclusive nursery schools will be useful but taking the cost of running and the time it will take to build such system will not allow me make such suggestion so I say, its better we add the Nursery system into our already existing primary schools with following reasons:
-This will save implementation time and cost.
-A Cut down in the cost of building and hiring teachers and administrators
-the administrative work of the pre-primary school can be added to the responsibility of the headmasters and headmistresses.
-parents will be at ease when their older children are in the same school with their younger brothers/sisters.
-Government can easily incorporate the pre-primary system into the current government agencies in charge of primary schools.
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Our current primary schools are not good. Their methods of course delivery are not effective and needs to be overhauled immediately, my suggestions here might not be 100% implementable but I believe with commitment on the part of the government and the educators (teachers, parents and the community) we can make things a lot better.
Let me start with the schools in the communities.
In 2007 I lived in Soku (a community in Akuku toru LGA) and taught pro bono in the only secondary school there and participated in several activities with the primary school (for fun) and so I can say things from the perspective of an objective observer.
I will not say the teacher there should be replaced with more trendy and better qualified teachers (this will not work) but what I will say is that the state should start a “train the trainer” program immediately using ideas from western and eastern worlds and then send such trainers to all our communities to introduce better child development methods to our rural teachers.
The problem I saw in the rural teachers is primarily the lack of motivation, charisma and vision (which if properly understood can be imbibed in them) then also, the use of language is one major problem I observed.
Let the government be very strict with its standards with regards the use of the English languages for course delivery, if this is not enforced you will observe a primary six pupil come out with a sound mind but poor self expression ability in the urban region which in most cases leads to low self esteem and a greater problem for the child outside his community.
Also, the use of illustrative objects, charts and pictures are things that we can introduce to the rural primary schools (or nursery and primary school as earlier suggested ) that without draining the education allocation will skyrocket our child-development success, the use of the afore mentioned objects cannot be over emphasized, it will immediately duplicate in quantum leaps the Child's intelligence and understanding of their subjects and also improve interactivity between the teacher and pupil (this is one of the breakthrough discovery in Montessori education) and I think as a state we should introduce it immediately or improve on it where it is currently available…
…….
Those ideas are used to address Pre-primary and primary schools, Post primary schools might need to follow a more radical approach.
Going by the current trends in the rural communities during the WAEC, NECO and JAMB exams, the government needs to accept that the level of post secondary education is almost at zero level. Action at this point has gotten to a critical level.
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