‘Education is no doubt the best legacy’.
This is one of the usual and common saying being told and believed by millennials. It has been a morale booster for them to set their minds to acquire education in order to make a great impact and fit in to the society but lately a lot has changed towards seeking education for better future.
Educational conscientiousness is rapidly degrading among students in every part of the country and has been a trend to see how they react to education.
One of the scarier problems about this anomaly is the negligence of the government and relevant parastatals. With the look of the state of education sector in the society, there is no guarantee that there will be an improvement in the standard of education in the country. The inability of the government both at the state and federal level has affected the development of the sector badly and has led to negligence among Nigerian students. The indifferential attitude of government towards the wrecked educational system especially the one currently battling the tertiary institutions has also affected the spirit of the students and the anticipating younger ones in primary institutions.
This has made current generations see education as an unnecessary process to success and the over-the-bar unemployment rate has triggered to label education as “scam”.
Students nowadays believe education is not the only way one can attain the intended comfortable position in this lifetime which is true but other alternatives to education is very absurd and has proven to be accompanied by immaturity and indolence. Students especially teenagers are keen to “looking good and fancy”rather than trying to beat their classmates for better academic performances, their lives are lately built around extravagance and impression.
This is not totally their fault cause nowadays the level of sense of entitlement for malpractices during external examinations and teachers have been seen as an obligation to the students. Examination malpractice is no new topic but its rampancy of it has done a lot of damage to students which made them lose value in education. They no longer have to work hard for their grades because they believe it matters less.
Most teenagers, especially males have been exposed to several ways of money which is mostly illegal. This definitely has a way of affecting the minds of learners, especially young ones. They are rather more focused on the crooked money-making journey than acquiring education. What is saddening about this is some are encouraged by their parents and guardians. They are inattentive and barely notice the unruly attitude of the children under their care. It will be no doubt hard to curb the continuity of such activities if it was not destroyed from the grassroots.
Guardians have been protesting against the discipline of the students by their teachers. This has been experienced by some teachers in private secondary schools and it is largely being propagated. In some ways, this decision from the parents has affected the level of compliance of students in the school and demeaned the educational value and with the ongoing ASUU strike which has lasted for over 5 months, there is no vicinity of a positive change towards it. It is very dampening to the minds of teenagers hoping to get into a university.
Therefore, youths will remain leaders of tomorrow and nothing can change that but their sacrifices can only affect their locality greatly and the country at large.
However, it is high time Nigerian government and relevant stakeholders rise up to their responsibilities to make sure the youths are vibrant and on the right path of knowledge, be it skills or proper education. Our country is not at its best from the top, but we should try our best to fix the new foundations for the sake of the future.
Ajibade Yaqub writes from Saki West Local Government Area of Oyo state. He can be reached via ajibadeyakubadebare@gmail.com
