Home Away from Home with Abi Adeboyejo
Email: abi.adeboyejo@yahoo.com Twitter: @abihafh
Clearly the reason for sending kids to school is to ensure that they get a good education. Education is said be our passport to the future. I am not convinced that adopting British education in Nigeria is always the right thing to do. I’ll tell you why.
When I started secondary school some three decades ago, I remember being ecstatic with the prospect of being away from home, with my own pocket money, my own food box (ring any bells, F.G.G.C, Oyo girls?) and my own classroom and dormitory locker. Needless to say it didn’t take long before I realised that it wasn’t all roses. The food was atrocious at best. We hardly had tap water but we lived on water from the deep well and tank-stored water, infected with spirogyra and mosquito larva. The tricks we pulled on teachers, the life-long friends I made and the unforgettable experiences I had made secondary school worth the hassle.
I can’t think of secondary school without remembering the one most enjoyable excursion I went with our geography club. The trip was held during our summer holidays and we went round Nigeria in a week, visiting notable geographic landmarks. We had an excellent trip, filled with the usual student trouble. One of us had a tummy upset from eating dodgy suya at Suleja and another student lost her purse and so we all had to contribute towards her meals. There were 23 of us, all girls, accompanied by two male teachers and the driver, Mr Raji or ‘Bros Raja’ as we called him.
Our parents did not think much of the fact that we were to be chaperoned by male teachers because they knew the teachers. The teachers themselves were self-respecting family men who treated us like their children and the mere suggestion of anything indecent would have been an insult to these men’s integrities. It is not as if child abuse didn’t exist then. The trip took place in 1990 and it showed that when parents and teachers co-operate, then children can learn in a safe environment.
Fast forward to 2015, in the United Kingdom. I now teach young adults and I have been appalled by the amount of rules and regulations that guide teachers’ interaction with their students. I once attended a compulsory training programme called ‘safeguarding young persons’. After the first hour I wasn’t sure I was in the right room. Was this training for teachers or for undercover police? We were told how to spot signs that a student was being sexually abused, neglected, using drugs or self-harming. We were told how to report anything suspicious so that social services could be involved. We were told to avoid any sort of physical contact with students to avoid claims of indecent contact or even legal action. And to contradict all of this, that same afternoon, I attended another compulsory training session on how to administer first aid to students in emergency situations.
I know for a fact that in Nigeria, many schools are striving to achieve what they think is the ‘Western/British’ standard of education. In many respects this is a good thing. It must be said, though, many of our state schools are already receding into the Stone Age because of lack of funds. It is so upsetting to see videos of children in village schools sitting in classrooms with no windows while our politicians get fatter, but that is another story for another day. For the more modern and usually private schools, copying the British way of education is the norm.
So I agree that using interactive teaching methods is good. Giving students the opportunity to go on excursions and trips is good too. Using up to date books and research materials is excellent.
In my opinion, there are many things that our Nigerian schools have adopted from their British counterparts which don’t make sense. Firstly, let’s take school uniforms. I agree that students should wear sensible school uniforms and shoes, look smart and neat. But how do you justify asking kids to wear a shirt, a blazer and a tie in temperatures that hit 35 degrees centigrade on a good day? Here in the UK, although kids dress like this to school in winter months when the weather is incredibly cold, all schools have what they call ‘summer uniforms’ so kids get to wear very light summer dresses and boys wear light short sleeved tops and shorts to school.
Secondly, the practice of teaching students the British curriculum and getting them to write British GCSEs and A Level exams is self-induced neo-colonisation in my opinion. The education sector in Britain is constantly changing. I doubt that many of the Nigerian schools that think they are offering excellent western education are aware of the changes soon enough and the implications for their students’ achievements and progression.
Now that safeguarding and ‘policing’ students is the new wave in the UK, I won’t be surprised if some of our Nigerian schools try to start implementing these ‘nosy-parker’ initiatives in their schools. Not only will they be impossible to carry out, given the social system (or lack of it) in Nigeria, it is also a rubbish initiative that gives people the opportunity to dig into children’s family life, point accusing fingers at different family members and fill kids’ minds with all sorts of unnecessary ideas of physical and sexual abuse.
While I recognise that my trip 23 years ago would probably be considered unsafe now because there was no female teacher with us, I am glad that I hadn’t been told all sorts of horrid things I could expect from a paedophiliac teacher. All I am saying is that schools should be more discerning in adopting initiatives and schemes in their school. Not all that glitters is gold. From what I’ve seen, educational systems suit the countries they are made for and instead of swallowing everything, like a fish breathing in water, Nigerian schools should improve the systems that exist so that they suit our children and prepares them for real life, ‘Naija’ style!
