LEARNING AGONY IN NIGERIA

   In developed countries, education is considered with importance and it is given priorities but reserve seems to be the case in developing countries like Nigeria. The derivative principle of governance in such countries is focused on education as means of developing the entire society and to improve the technological and scientific base and process of the people in order to be able to face the challenges ahead.

      However, the converse is the case in developing countries like Nigeria and other third world countries as education is treated with levity and disclaim, as the leader feel threatened and unsecured if majority of the youths are educated.

The condition of learning in Nigeria today is so tedious that our pupils and students are affected especially in the government owned schools or public schools. It starts from primary schools where pupils carry their chairs and tables from home to school. Some primary schools both private and public do not have a classroom for learning, which they end up using under the various trees as their classrooms. It transcended to secondary schools where students carry their lockers to school permanently.

Today, in our tertiary institutions of learning you find blocks and stones in the classrooms used by students to seat and receive lectures. The lecture hall is overcrowded and still some students receive lectures through the windows due to lack of space.

Apart from the frustration of seats in schools and overcrowding, books no longer exist in any of the school library most libraries of different schools have turned to mere study places due to lack of relevant textbooks.

Furthermore, the lecturers have found solace of printing handouts and utilize the opportunity to the maximum. Lecturers make their handout compulsory and it has become criteria to pass a course of the lecturer in our university.   Students do not read any longer so far they buy the lecturer’s handouts and text books as the case maybe. The female students go to the extent of sleeping with the male lecturer in order to gain good grades. In order get money for handouts, students engage in different kind of businesses both legitimate and illegitimate. They spend most of their time searching for money to settle lecturers instead of attending lectures , because buying of handout lecturer’s, settlement constitute 50% of their course work and not attendance , assessment as it use to be.

    furthermore , cultism is not left out some students who do not have the financial to strength to settle lecturers or buy handouts, they seek alternative by joining or forming cult groups to seek protection from lecturer’s victimization. Some join for material benefit to meet up with the task ahead such group of students are fed up with learning Agony and as a result seeks for the best alternative according to their own reasoning faculty.

the private institution of learning seems to have more facilities of learning and conducive environment. the problem is that it is too costly for an average Nigerian to take up the bills of training their children in the private owned institution of learning. The private secondary schools and territory institution are more of business orientated instead of impacting knowledge. The school fees are very expensive and some of the private territory institution has some clause of the category of persons that will be admitted. The most annoying part of the private institution of learning is that it is owned by different churches, and the institution is built with the church money giving the congregation hope of training in a less expensive way, but only to dash their hope with high school fee compared to public institution.

The plight of learning in Nigeria is also associated with the frequent strike by the academic staff union of universities (ASUU) which is a union that regulate lecturers who are member. it is difficult in Nigeria for academic activities to run for ten years consecutively without a breach by strike. This makes student get tired, the fact being that they will spend months and years of no academic activities. This elongate their study period leading to most of our ladies getting during the period of the strike and that ends their educational pursuit.

  the truth should be said Nigerian government are not trying in educational sector and make amend. Looking at the fact that joint admission and matriculation board cutoff mark used to be 180 to gain admission into the territory institution but recently reduced to 120, are we moving forward or backward.the fact remains that educational system in Nigeria is still backward but most Nigerians priority is to be educated.