THE release by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) that 1.4 million out of 1.8 million students who sat for the examination scored below 200 is nothing but a national emergency and it calls for immediate action. The revelation has just exposed us to the dangers inherent in government’s failure to invest in education and in addition, bad parenting .
I could recall with nostalgia how I was brought up as a child from a poor background with values that were rooted in our culture such as hard work, productivity, honesty, chastity, decency, good neighbourliness amongst others.
Unfortunately, parents today are now socialising their children into a vile culture of corruption by hiring surrogate candidates to write examinations for their kids. Parents have failed to inculcate virtues such as probity, honesty, perseverance, love of education amongst others, in their children. It is disturbing!
Critical stakeholders in the educational sector, and, indeed, the society, must understand that children and youth constitute a critical aspect of the society. Thus, they must not be exposed to flawed beliefs which now resonate in their thinking. This is backed up by a Yoruba maxim which is interpreted in English that “the branches of an Iroko tree should be pruned at nursery to prevent a future damage.” This popular Yoruba maxim states why a family is expected to teach children good morals in their early life.
Parents and musicians now tell our younger ones that all the talk about schooling being the ticket to a successful life are lies. This is what reinforces that mantra “education is a scam”.
This mass failure in as much as it talks of government failure to invest in education, brings to the fore the question of parental functions.
This mass failure which has just been recorded by JAMB calls for not just sober reflection but immediate radical action from the Federal Ministry of Education. The government must acknowledge the fact that Nigeria’s current educational policy or even the posture of the government is neither satisfying the yearnings of its teeming youths nor delivering the needs of the labour market.
I expected that the Minister of Education would have by this time called for an emergency educational summit to analyse the problem and remedy it. The welfare of teachers must also be prioritised.
- Kazeem Olalekan Israel, Ibadan.
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