Out of everything we were told in camp before we got posted to our PPAs (Place of Primary Assignment), one thing always stood out.
The fact that Ekiti is known as the ‘Fountain of Knowledge’.
It was sung every time someone stood up to speak. References were made to the numerous professorial juggernauts that the state had produced locally and internationally in various fields of life.
It actually also gave us the impression that the state was particularly serious with education. Since most of us were going to teach anyway, we started looking forward to it.
And now, months after we were posted, it’s obvious that commitment to education was just built on tendencies of the past with very little bearing on the state of events today, at least in the hinterlands that I have grown to know.
Other colleagues in the bigger towns aren’t enthused either about the state of things. Ekiti still has the frame of making the “fountain of knowledge” tag count but there’s a lot of work to do.
This is also an eye opener for me. Nigeria as a nation is so far behind where education is concerned. We have gotten to that point where only the rich and those living in the big cities can afford proper education. The rest may just as well sit at home.
The government has succeeded in casting education to the list of projects unimportant to handle. Schools are not well equipped and taken care of. They lack everything from teachers to a funnel in a chemistry laboratory.
When a student in secondary school can not express him or herself in proper English, or write a sentence properly, then we are in trouble. When teachers don’t care anymore about their jobs and refuse to do anything about it, and concentrate on their businesses outside the school, it becomes even worse.
When Corps members, who are untrained, become teachers themselves, delivering the critical assignments – that’s another problem. When a child, in secondary school, doesn’t know and cannot identify correctly the complete alphabets, a catastrophe is in the works. Everybody simply trudges on as if there is no problem.
From what I have gathered and seen, it seems no one cares anymore; the government, the teachers, the parents and sadly, the students. Whatever these kids go to school to do, learning is evidently the least of them.
Adaeze Ifejilimalu (@Dazee_Zita)
dazeetah's Blog 
Hmmmm……this is so true. Still, I retain hope. I trust that some (like you) will keep making a difference….well done!
Thank you Ma:)
Nicely written, thought provoking.
Thanks Ernest. glad you approve
Nice to see that you’re actually staying there. what will you be teaching?
I have been here for months now. i am teaching Agric science.
Reading your “6 thoughts on Erijiyan”, my mind was immediately cast back to the state where I served, Jigawa State. A state that was adjudged to be the poorest state in the Federation, and that was much more educationally disadvantaged even amongst the northern states. Honestly, I feel real bad about our government’s (at all levels) lackadaisical attitudes towards education in this country; an education most of them enjoyed at its best. During my service year, I visited Osun State, and the corps members there narrated almost the same story you have just told. Again, I was amazed because I had always heard that people from the South-West were better educated than those from other geo-political zones of this country. My fears were worsened when I, together with some of my colleagues, carried out a community project at a primary school in Itele, Ado-Odo/Ota LGA of Ogun State (an area very close to one of our former president’s home town); infact, the only primary school the community has. The pupils do not know “jack”, and most of them were sitting on bricks, practically close to the floor, with no platform whatsoever to even place their books, not to talk of the gross dilapidation of the entire school building (a school that was built in 1940). How on earth are these kids going to assimilate anything being taught in such conditions? I often wonder. But in all these, Zee, there is hope. I will save why I have said this for another day, but I am convinced that THERE IS HOPE.
As hopeless as the situation may seem, there’s still hope!
I feel ur pain… Bt being said,hw can dis problem be solved…how can we ensure dat these children (d future of Nigeria ) get liberated frm d schakles of illiteracy