EDUCATION IN MY NATION

        A nation cannot rise above
        the level of her knowledge.
One major place we get knowledge is the school, this system is popularly called formal education. I ask, how high can we rise with the standard of our formal education in this nation? Can it take us high as it has taken other developed nations, who had invested greatly in their formal education? Our present education standard, will give us is normal thing, at most mediocre level, what more! Any nation that will rise above, must have good standard of education. To me, the ideal standard of education, is the one that has what it takes to transform a nation. Transform a nation in the sense that, the knowledge gotten from it can make life better for the people when put to use. That is the way of those we strive to send our children to. School is not just a place where a child must go, it is also a place where the potentials in the child is brought alive by good knowledge for the benefit of the child and the society. I say here, the brain of all human on earth are the same, we all have the same mind power capacity, the difference is what is imputed into the the brain and what we feed the mind with. Anyone can build a plane, if he or she have the same mind capacity, the adequate knowledge to build one. Our schools, from primary to tertiary level, does not resemble what can help the potentials in our children and all others that go to school. Thanks to some private school that are bringing in new light and to individuals striving to make a difference. The education of this nation is in such a state that it does not most times transform the individuals who get it. Even our home made professors have not proved anything unusual about what they have learnt. If they have, we will all be enjoying it
    Many part make a whole. Formal education is made of many parts, teachers, infrastructure, the pupils and students. All these must be well built and consciously put together to make an educational standard that can transform our land. Education is beyond formality, 'I am sending my children to school', it has it transformational and developmental role to play in every nation and it work best for those who embrace the best of it. Many of those developed nations we see as role model are product of good education, they invested the best in the parts that make whole education.
  My first point of call here is the vessel that bear the knowledge, the teachers. Teaching should be valued as a professional profession as doctor, law, engineering and lot more. Teachers are the ones who bear the knowledge given to others. The way teachers are treated here, is not one that can birth the kind of education needed. They are just as people who has nothing to contribute to the nation, they have important role and contributions. A nation that does not regard teachers, does not value knowledge, she stands the risk of the cost of ignorance. The teaching profession should be should be upgraded to high standard with good benefit and respect like every other profession. But if this must be, the requirement for admitting students to the school of education must be high. Intelligent teachers are needed for standard education.  Over the years, colleges of education has been regarded as the place where not too sound people go, those who cannot meet up with high requirements. For crying out loud, what sort of teachers will those ones make?  Well, we see them, by their fruits. Kudos to the good ones. The education of the nation is on the down path, those who are far from the best are sent to raise others, how does that work? If you think, it is a defamation, look at the requirement for colleges of education. I think it should be more than that. Those who must bear the vessel of knowledge in this nation must be able to compete with any other, anywhere. If others, for professional courses are scoring 240, they should score 240 to get into our colleges of education that need a lot of upgrading and university of educations that need a lot of attention. The two need world standard upgrade. I tell you this will be the beginning of a turning.
   I say here, the education of this nation needs good attention. Education moulds a nation's destiny to an extent. Oh that our leaders may know that the destinies of people  of different tribes and culture, are committed into their hands when elected or appointed into public offices. Many of them see it as there time to eat their portion of the portion. To do it right, will commit them to giving their real best not this manipulation. I tell you, it is saddening when people overlook, what they should do, for self gain.
  A little digression to the ministry of education which is the determinant of what goes into schools at all levels. From the minister to the least administrative staff should be an educationists, who know what education is in itself and have value for it. People who understand and can defend the course of education, any where at any point. Those who know when thing are going on well and when things are going wrong in the field, with solution for the way out. The minister should be a work proved educationists, who had made many contribution to the education and still making more, not this round peg in the square hole, who are brought in as a result of making their dream come to pass. They leave the ministry plunged into mediocrity than they met it. Messing the already messed.
    A well infrastructured school is needed to produce able teachers. They need to have both theoretical and practical knowledge on the different field they have chosen so as to pass adequate knowledge to their pupils and students. The infrastructure is not limited school of education alone. It goes to the nursery/primary to other higher institutions of learning. This theoretical education system in this nation profits mediocrity. It can't stand us out. A practical education (less of theory, more of practical)system within few years will advance the nation's productivity.
     I met a gentleman in the course of getting a job form. Talk led to talk and he told me, he studied mechanical engineering, wow! A prospective course.
   'What are you doing here, you should have a mechanical stand' I asked
    'You know our work is theory, so ... ' he replied
So it cannot transform your little life after years of burning night candle, cramming, doing all you could to be a graduate. How will it transform a nation. When the education given to a child cannot transform a child, it is a failed one. The gotten education does worth not much, it still make an expected fully baked, a 'half baked'. A half baked cake is not good for consumption, it runs the belly. Think, how can a mechanical engineer be scrambling for a job that has nothing to do with his qualification. He just needed that to advance him from his teaching level to meet the daily bread, potential or skills dumped not withstanding. Such engineers in my nation can not repair their own machines. They still call those men who had left school long ago to learn the practical.
That is the kind of education we have, the one that left a graduate more frustrated because he learnt but did not know. The case is just like a computer engineer that had not touch one, but he know every thing about computer right in his head. What is his defence, that he went to school?
  Our schools need to be well structured (building), conducive for learning, well equipped with necessary and needed educational material for practical learning. Bad enough, you will marvel at some school structure, looking uncompleted, dilapidated, over populated.  How do any pupil or student get the best out of this? . Investment and allocation should be made into education with adequate and monitored division to every level for an education indeed.
     Politicizing education for campaign reasons is lacking the knowledge of the value of education. It is hurting the nation real big. I remember when a state governor wanted to write exam for the teachers in his state, egbele oo!  It was as if he had lined them up for death. There was nothing  they did not do or say even to consulting the spiritual for help. They were determined to do anything not to write the exam. They did not, and so they killed the chance of education taking a turning in the state. If the teachers were sure, they would have given him the right condition for writing the exam not running away. The painful part, was that, some aspirants used it for campaign, asking the ignorant followers, 'Do you want to write exam' Mocking education for personal gains. 'No' They will say. There is need for that kind of exam to take place nation wide to wash the sector, kai, you will  see reactions. 
   Education taken with levity is the future of the  nation taken with levity. It is the knowledge age not ignorance. If we must see the transformation we need, we need to sit down and bring good education to be. Whatever it cost let us give it. Whatever we invested into education is not a waste, it is sure investment into the future that pays in folds.