COME TO SCHOOL TO BECOME USELESS
Recently the Presidency in Nigeria proudly announced on social media that the Buhari administration has spent N3.77bn so far feeding 1.28m school children in 9 states of the federation.
The participating states were Zamfara, the only one from the North; three from South West: Oyo, Osun and Ogun; one from South South.Delta and four from South East: Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia.
In the process, it said, 14,000 cooks have been hired to Cook the meals and naturally, the children must be learning more now than before.
So, it is on schedule to feed at least over 3m school children this year.
Oh, sure, it means that the Buhari administration means well for our children and believes very much in keeping its political promises.
Well that may be true, but one sad part of today's Nigeria and one of the lessons Nigeria must learn from the current blessing in disguise called recession, is the fact that our educational system has collapsed completely and that for years we have been very busy producing educated Nigerians who are useless to themselves and the economy until retrained or mentored.
There are two daughters of a Nigerian senior citizen. The elder attended a reputable federal university and is now very busy learning so many things new everyday at her work place. She is lucky because her ability to understudy and adapt is natural.
However, her younger sister currently studies abroad and seeing what and how this younger one is being taught, she exclaimed to her Dad that the federal university she attended is a glorified secondary school, in comparison.
Another example. Recently Henates was privy to an attempt by an organisation to recruit volunteer teachers for a primary school in India and you know what they were looking for: Volunteers who could handle project based learning. In a primary school?
Now you get it. Many other third world countries are busy fine tuning their education and training to produce tomorrow's high tech working population and here we are pre occupied with encouraging pupils to come to school by spending very scarce funds to provide free food.
Well, let them be well or better fed but for your information, that will never arm them or Nigeria for tomorrow, only the quality of what they digest through their education and practicals can.
So, really the billions now being spent on dangling good food before poorly fed children will be better utilised if we can use it to provide facilities to produce 1000 children fit for today and tomorrow's needs with minimal retraining.
Besides, we are already spending billions when only one out of the northern states with very high teenage population has joined the programme. What will happen when eventually all of them join?
Nigeria's budget is today threatened not only by corruption but more importantly, by debt servicing obligations and the need to incur more debts to finance ballooning deficit. Does it make sense then to dish out free food unless to those who are truly starving and may die if not aided?
In fact Nigeria's legendary neglect and poor handling of human capital development can be said to be a major contributor to today's issues and made one unable to go with Finance Minister, Mrs Adeosun, when she said yesterday at Nigerian stock exchange bloomberg CEO roundtable that with more tax revenue, we should be getting it right.
No. Nigeria is too busy getting its young ones to school only to teach them outdated theories that make them less useful when they graduate. Worse, because of the rotten system we run, many now bribe their way into schools and to receive top grades and talented ones are being forced to go abroad to realise their true potential. Just as our leaders rush abroad for quality healthcare.
This is hoping that tough times will whip Nigeria back in shape in this area soon enough. We can't just go on being more concerned with petrol shortages, free food, federal allocation and all that the way Nigeria is still going. Recession or no recession, that train will eventually derail.
The participating states were Zamfara, the only one from the North; three from South West: Oyo, Osun and Ogun; one from South South.Delta and four from South East: Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi and Abia.
In the process, it said, 14,000 cooks have been hired to Cook the meals and naturally, the children must be learning more now than before.
So, it is on schedule to feed at least over 3m school children this year.
Oh, sure, it means that the Buhari administration means well for our children and believes very much in keeping its political promises.
Well that may be true, but one sad part of today's Nigeria and one of the lessons Nigeria must learn from the current blessing in disguise called recession, is the fact that our educational system has collapsed completely and that for years we have been very busy producing educated Nigerians who are useless to themselves and the economy until retrained or mentored.
There are two daughters of a Nigerian senior citizen. The elder attended a reputable federal university and is now very busy learning so many things new everyday at her work place. She is lucky because her ability to understudy and adapt is natural.
However, her younger sister currently studies abroad and seeing what and how this younger one is being taught, she exclaimed to her Dad that the federal university she attended is a glorified secondary school, in comparison.
Another example. Recently Henates was privy to an attempt by an organisation to recruit volunteer teachers for a primary school in India and you know what they were looking for: Volunteers who could handle project based learning. In a primary school?
Now you get it. Many other third world countries are busy fine tuning their education and training to produce tomorrow's high tech working population and here we are pre occupied with encouraging pupils to come to school by spending very scarce funds to provide free food.
Well, let them be well or better fed but for your information, that will never arm them or Nigeria for tomorrow, only the quality of what they digest through their education and practicals can.
So, really the billions now being spent on dangling good food before poorly fed children will be better utilised if we can use it to provide facilities to produce 1000 children fit for today and tomorrow's needs with minimal retraining.
Besides, we are already spending billions when only one out of the northern states with very high teenage population has joined the programme. What will happen when eventually all of them join?
Nigeria's budget is today threatened not only by corruption but more importantly, by debt servicing obligations and the need to incur more debts to finance ballooning deficit. Does it make sense then to dish out free food unless to those who are truly starving and may die if not aided?
In fact Nigeria's legendary neglect and poor handling of human capital development can be said to be a major contributor to today's issues and made one unable to go with Finance Minister, Mrs Adeosun, when she said yesterday at Nigerian stock exchange bloomberg CEO roundtable that with more tax revenue, we should be getting it right.
No. Nigeria is too busy getting its young ones to school only to teach them outdated theories that make them less useful when they graduate. Worse, because of the rotten system we run, many now bribe their way into schools and to receive top grades and talented ones are being forced to go abroad to realise their true potential. Just as our leaders rush abroad for quality healthcare.
This is hoping that tough times will whip Nigeria back in shape in this area soon enough. We can't just go on being more concerned with petrol shortages, free food, federal allocation and all that the way Nigeria is still going. Recession or no recession, that train will eventually derail.
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