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The Nigerian education environment is a tapestry of cultures and curricula imported from different climes around the globe. There are a plethora of so called international schools around populated by children of civil servants, ‘ex this’ and ‘former that’ that breed nothing but misfits for the society. Our source of concern is with the different curricula and syllabi of these schools that leave out core subjects like African and Nigerian history and lay undue emphasis on foreign cultures. Nigerian history and African history must be made core compulsory subjects in our schools. This is the only way we can get these generations of Nigerians to appreciate our cultures, ethics, morals and fundamental principles. Knowledge of our history can only help them to appreciate the heroes and heroines who toiled for us to have a country.
This generation of Nigerian children knows next to nothing about their country and the African continent. We are not against the idea of variety in the education system. However, our quarrel is with the salient effontery and assault on our heritage that comes with it. Accept it or not we are setting ourselves up for re-colonisation and a most dangerous form of it at that. Psychological defeat is the worst form of hostage taking but we seem not to get it. There is trouble brewing in a situation whereby the minds of future leaders of Nigeria are moulded on foreign thoughts, nurtured and developed on alien cultures. Their ambitions and thoughts are geared to reject the African-ness and the Nigerian -ness in us and an example of possible result of such have been exhibited by the weight of unbelievable scandals from our immediate past. It is embarrassing enough that we almost lost the country due to someone’s ineptitude or cluelessness, but the sad reality and truth is that the person was surrounded by people with deep rooted inferiority complex and attitude whose biggest worry was how American or Western or how un-Nigerian they are. The end result was that we got conned by a group of “credential” flouting individuals whose only claim to knowledge is that they ‘schooled’ and “worked” abroad. That attitude is partly responsible for their propensity for primitive acquisition and the consequent exhibition of kleptomaniac characteristics that brought us to our present state of economic quagmire.
Education is key to the development of a people and a country can only grow and be competitive in a world that has shrunk to a global village. We can only grow if we establish a robust education base that fully integrate its culture, beliefs, and establish a tradition, its people would be proud of where ever they may find themselves.
The easiest and fastest way to the mind is education because as the saying goes “a person is what he knows”. This is why we wish to call the attention of those in charge to go beyond supervision of these schools to diligent scrutiny of various curricula of schools. Surely, there has to be some minimum or basic benchmark for the operations of these schools. But from the look of things, there seem not to be any for the simple reason that those whose job it is to monitor what is going on in those schools are their main patrons.
Regardless, it is our opinion that the legislatures at both federal and state levels must see it as a matter of duty to lay the ground rules for these schools and ensure that they are obeyed with severe penalties for any infraction. Nigeria must not be a dumping ground for cultures that are not only alien, but also capable of jeopardising the future of our children by exposing them to a pernicious world view.
