English and Mathematics; Pre-requisite For Entry into Higher Institutions

We are all familiar with the “five credit passes, including English and Maths” that accompany the terms & conditions of admission that must be satisfied in virtually all the tertiary institutions in the country. This has been an age long tradition whose relevance in our country today ought to be re-examined. I have a brief example to share.

I took four SS1 students private lessons on science courses and one of these students happen to be very poor in arithmetic, so poor in anything involving numbers to the extent that ‘ten’ divided by ‘two’ has proven on several occasions to be an arduous challenge for him. Let’s not discuss how he managed to even get to SS1 in the first place, but this boy is very bright in other subjects and was capable of reasoning and thinking real wide. I know that he definitely would get better in arithmetic (he already is), but what about others out there who might be facing similar challenges?

English language is merely a type of language. The fundamental essence of every language is communication. Inasmuch as one is capable of reading, writing and speaking a language, the primary objective of studying that language has been accomplished —save for those who choose to advance their knowledge in the field — and every other thing that follows is secondary.  What we study in English in our schools is quite disorienting. 

Likewise maths, research and survey have shown that several people possess an inherent ‘phobia’ for mathematics and thus find it extremely difficult to cope in an ‘arithmetic weather’. Others on the other hand are naturally endowed with the ability to effortlessly tackle mathematical problems.

For the English, since it has been adopted as our official language, I’ll say that it will do well for everyone to master its use. For mathematics however, someone who has been gifted in painting or athletics ought not to be unnecessarily punished or denied the opportunity of advancing in his/her career simply because he/she is not good in maths.

It’s high time we begin to evaluate certain norms/laws that no longer yield desired results. For one not to credit maths and English does not mean such a person has nothing to offer — I think that those who benefit from such student’s failures are the examination bodies themselves — even though these subjects are believed to be functional skills.

By now, some of our higher institutions ought to have been converted to specialized vocational schools if we truly believe that SME’s have a role to play in contributing to the nation’s GDP and help alleviate the soaring rate of unemployment.

God bless Nigeria.

Redundancy

There’s this common saying that “Nobody wan die, but everybody wan go heaven” which is gradually getting obsolete, but a closer look at this aged phrase suggests it still holds water when we use it to examine our lifestyles.
You earn two hundred thousand naira every month of which you put in a lot of useful work that is beneficial to you, your community, your family, the nation et cetera and we all appreciate you for it. Suddenly you discovered that your backyard housed enough gold deposit, so bountiful you could harvest two hundred million naira daily for the next three years, all this without breaking a sweat and the next thing we know; you start preparing your resignation letter even though retirement is still residing out of sight.
This is what will happen to many Nigerian workers today (could even happen to me too) because we are after the money. We crave the pay not the work, and any opportunity that promises a better pay eventually sends us packing, never considering our impact on those who really need our services. This is the one major cause of unproductivity in our lives and subsequently our dear nation. Some persons can even shamelessly declare; “anything for the money.” Really? How about me paying you a million naira every month for sleeping? If you can successfully pull this off for a year then truly, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for money and I will have to revisit the dictionary definition of the word ‘slavery’.
Nigeria as a country once exhibited this phenomenon. We once were dogged farmers, but with the discovery of crude oil, our farm boots got hanged. We as humans so much crave “the easy and luxurious life” that we completely lost sense of our purposes in life. The media/society has successfully convinced so many that happiness and fulfillment in life is directly proportional to your bank statement, and we get to watch movies and listen to so many testimonies buttressing the idea that only those with enough money could live in the best of houses, drive the best of cars, wear the best of clothes, marry whomever they desired, take vacations/tourism at will, eat and drink whatever they pleased…… and many of us be like “wow, this is the life”.  And we eventually disconnect ourselves from our duty post and end up fantasizing.
One thing I begin to see is that our love for pleasure might make us stop working altogether in future should we keep up this trend of not wanting to sweat. We now term it as “working smart not hard”, but someone has got to do that hard work lest the ‘ecosystem’ will lose her balance.
Talking about smart working, our smartphones now possess so many applications that can get so many things done. I recently attended a programme at a retreat, and when it got to the time of refreshments,  soft drinks were being served and there were no ‘openers’ available to disengage the corks from the bottles and a young man asked hilariously, “abeg who get android phone make e open opener app….”. Trust me, some of these apps do come in handy, but we should be wary of the fact that even marijuana is a vegetable; it all depends on how you cook it.
The excessive/unwise use of these software is gradually creeping into our lifestyles such that a little drop of sweat is considered distasteful unless we were exercising, of which some of us still prefer to stand on one Chinese mat to obtain the equivalent of a road walk or one electronic massager to help run so many errands.
Though I’m not a medical practitioner, but I do know that what we do not regularly make use of, dies gradually. Even our brain works in like manner for it develops mostly in areas we allow it to access. Get to allow your organs and muscles to perform their designated functions and not completely rely on some external machine/substance to do their work for them. Trust me, you are not ready to part with them on the long run…..
God bless Nigeria