I’ve shunned writing for a long time now, so long that I can’t remember when last I sat down to write…well, except my assignments of course! but then today something has been pushing me to the students wi-fi center since morning. Well then, since am here now, I just reckoned to check on this my wordpress space, and if possible type some incoherent words and then vanish to thin air! And am going to spend the next few minutes doing just that!
Sometimes when I sit in the quietness of my room, I keep asking the question, whats the way forward for us? and by this I mean, where are we going from here? Its no more news that the state of the nation is bad, in fact, I believe a newborn baby in Nigeria cries even more than his partner in the US or other saner societies at birth, because the challenges are enormous. Well, good news is I didn’t stab lunch to sit here and moan about the level of ineptitude in the country. I came here to ask, what is the way forward? Since I’m a student, I’d love to start from my immediate constituency. I am no professor of curriculum studies, neither am I a doctorate degree holder in any field under the sun (this will soon change anyway, so hold your peace), but I find our curriculum somewhat useless, five years of studying law and there is nothing in the curriculum that gives any form of instruction in public speaking and/or debating is simply laughable. Maybe there is a course like that in law school, I have no way of knowing. but I would have thought that since law school is only for one year, such should have been incorporated into the five year curriculum. I’m sure other fields would have their own “stories that touch” to recount if given the chance. I remember when we were doing a certain GSS course in year one, Computer Applications, we only had the chance to enter the laboratory thrice. I was busy complaining that this was not enough, until a friend from another department told me they only entered once, the next time they touched the computers was when they were about to do their test on the course. needless to say, the computers were grossly inadequate. the issue of training the lecturers has also become a matter for grave concern. It shocks me when one or two lecturers start acting as if the students are competing with them. it is common to hear comments like “in this course, first class is for the gods, second class is for me, and third class is for dummies like you” and I ask, all this, to what end? Isn’t a lecturer supposed to have at the back of his mind, the desire to raise students who will in turn make him and the society proud? Not to talk of the lecturers whose lecture notes are filled with contradictions, those who come to read textbooks are everywhere now. Nowadays everybody thinks that becoming a lecturer is the only way to escape from the abyss of penury. Need I talk of the “female molesters and the money collectors?” and to this I keep asking, If a teacher is supposed to live above board, then are these ones teachers?
The students are not saints anyway! It is no more news that there are students who will NEVER read for any reason under the sun. These will in turn seek to be leaders in the future. I think I read somewhere that a leader in the 21st century should be a connoisseur of sorts. and how can you be a judge without knowledge? I know the odds are always against the students, but if we all rise up to say, WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE OF THIS ROT, the school authorities will invariably fall behind us. After all, everyone is mouthing the war against corruption! but it will shock you, that it is the same students that will rise up in opposition, seeking to maintain the status quo. Many course representatives have attained the status of business managers and sorting reps. I ask, with all this, whats the way forward? by the way, did I say I wasn’t going to mourn about the country?
to be continued…
