Prescription For Improvement Of Nigeria's Educational System

By Marianne Van Der Wel,
Retired lecturer,
McMaster University,
Canada.

The issues that face Nigeria, a country that was forced upon groups of people that did not like each other very much in such a way that I do wonder if recovery is possible. The soical-economic-spiritual issues facing Nigeria are deep and very, very complex. I have read other books Adjekpagbon has sent me. If I were to put these books in my school system, perfectly acceptable when I was in school here in Canada, in the 1950s and 1960s, today, I would be arrested for child abuse.

There is a video you can listen to, to gain some understanding as to the reasons your school system, which I find very 1950s, based on the British model, is failing the younger generation. Colonization and British law and order was adopted in Nigeria in a way that it serves no Nigerian well and is not bringing you closer to your African ways of relating to your young the way you used before "my" peoples arrival and MEDDLING.

I think, it is time:
- to leave Queen Victoria behind,
- rename that HORRIBLE example of an island in terms of helping Nigeria find its way towards peace, harmony with a more equal distribution of its wealth, that Island named after Queen Victoria that sits off of Lagos City State,
- lose those funny white wigs in your court system
- and rewrite your National Anthem so that it does NOT sound like God Save Britain's queen

Your young are not motivated by how we used to do things in school and neither are ours over here in Canada [for different reasons]. I too hated reading (and still do) but I know how to motivate myself to do that which I hate doing when I see the importance of doing so. Yours will too once we develop a way of life that can see it through their eyes, eyes that are on the Internet relating more with their fellow young people, all over the world, than their own parents and teachers. That I see as a recipe for disaster world wide since the young still need their elders to guide and mentor them.

That said, we old people (I am 74), who spent my career teaching computing to adults but volunteered as a Girl Guide Leader for 25 years thus a mentor to young girls, I had to change the way I motivated the young and not so young learn, constantly. A good mentor must always be a good learner first and be constantly learning from the people we mentor...not to be like the people we mentor but to help those we mentor become their own best selves while we stay true to our own best self. We do not need more Carbon Copies of who I am.

When fresh eyes meets life experience, without losing our personal identity as we help those we mentor find theirs, under a banner of a whole some inner discipline, knowing and acknowledging our boundaries and constraints, only then can our true spirits soar.

NOTE: The video could be accessed on facebook at Bulkybon Publications Company's group. Just copy and paste this link on your browser thus: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323877500990092/1232015660176267/?ref=notif¬if_t=like¬if_id=1471862237175459